Philosophy discussion

Prologue

This is a very dense text. It is a synopsis for a book[i]. It consists of 29 definitions of categories of logic, aesthetics, and ethics. These definitions are nothing new. Some of them are directly copied from dictionaries or books. Others are reductions based on already widely accepted definitions. The purpose of this text is to provoke curiosity rather than reaching an endpoint.

*********

The reason is the capacity for cognition, thinking, moral judgment and aesthetic judgment. Disciplines that study these capacities are the theory of knowledge, logic, ethics, and aesthetics, respectively. Within these four general areas reason appears in many specific forms. These forms are "perfectly" known in philosophy, yet an unknown pattern has been noticed which shows us that they are all a variation of the same theme. It has been noticed that, in their essence, all of these forms are kinds of identity relations:


1. Truth is a relation of identity between the truth-bearer (e.g., a proposition) and truth-maker (e.g., a fact). (Russell and Moore in one period)
• “Correspondence holds between a proposition and a fact when the proposition and fact have the same structure, and the same constituents at each structural position” (Glanzberg), or essentially - correspondence is a relation of identity according to the structure;

2. Beauty

• Rhyme is a relation of identity between two or more words or phrases according to the final sounds;
• Rhythm is a relation of identity, according to the time interval between the beats;
• The golden ratio is a relation of identity between the ratio of the whole to the larger part and the ratio of the larger part to the smaller;
• Symmetry is an identity relation between two sides or halves;
• Anaphora is a relation of identity, according to the initial phrase or word in consecutive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses;
• Assonance is a relation of identity, according to the vowels between neighboring or words in close proximity to one another;
• Anadiplosis is a relation of identity between the last and the first word of two neighboring phrases or sentences;
• Epanalepsis is a relation of identity between a phrase or a word used at the beginning and the end of a sentence;
• Meter (in literature) is (1) relation of identity between feet, according to their structure; and (2) relation of identity between verses according to the number of feet (and syllables at the same time) they have;
• Etc.

This led us to an assumption that beauty in its essence is a relation of identity and the beauty of an object is the totality of identity relations it contains. This sub-thesis can be supported with the authority of Francis Hutcheson and the English poet Coleridge, who in his “On Poesy or Art” essay, writes: “…pleasure consists in the identity of two opposite elements, that is to say sameness and variety. …This unity in multeity I have elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty” (Coleridge).

3. Goodness

• Justice is a relation of identity between the value of the given and the value of the deserved;
• Distributive justice is essentially a relation of identity between the values of privileges, duties, and goods the individual receives on the one hand, and the value of the merits of the individual on the other hand;
• Retributive justice is essentially a relation of identity between the severity of the crime and the severity of punishment (‘An eye for an eye’);
• Restorative justice is a relation of identity between the extent of damage and the extent of reparation;
• The golden rule is an identity between the treatment we want to receive and the treatment others receive from us;
• Happiness is a relation of identity between the actual and desired state;
• Love is a relation of identity between two souls;
• Solidarity is a relation of identity in interests, objectives, and standards among members of a group or a class;
• Empathy is identification with the other according to the feelings or experiences;
• Each social group, category, or any other form of unity of reason in individuals, is formed on the foundation of some type of identity between individuals that constitute it;

This led us to an assumption that goodness in its essence is a relation of identity and that moral reasoning is in its core a process of identification and differentiation. From my humble knowledge of the history of philosophy, I cannot remember another metaethical theory according to which goodness is a relation of identity. However, The fundamental thesis of the so-called moral egalitarianism, which dominates the social, political, and moral philosophy since the end of the 20 century onwards, is that equality is the essence of morality. On the other hand, every equality can be easily reduced to pure identity.

3. Thinking

• Induction is an identification between the known and unknown cases of the same class;
• The process of deductive thinking includes a series of identifications, first between the subject and the predicate from the first and second premises. Then the main identification, the essence of the deduction, between the two premises according to the middle term, wherein, with the application of Euclid’s rule: ‘Things equal to the same thing are also equal to one another’, as a conclusion we get identity between the major and the minor term. The deduction is a usage of the transitivity of identity
• Analogy is an identification between two relations of objects;
• One idea associates with another idea which is identical to it according to one or more properties;
• Each categorization and each classification occur according to a certain identity;
• Abstraction is the process of formulating generalized ideas or concepts by extracting common properties from specific examples. Common properties are in fact the content of the identity relation between specific examples. In order for the reason to extract these common properties, it needs to perform an identification.
• Analysis is based on identification because it clearly claims an identity, according to the meaning of analysandum and analysans;
• Etc.

This led us to an assumption that thinking in its essence is a process of identification and differentiation. I add differentiation because every identification is at the same time differentiation. As postulated in logic, the goal of the abstract logical thinking is reaching the truth. The goal and the result of the operation of identification can only be an identity, and according to this, truth, as seen previously, is nothing else but a relation of identity and when the reason recognizes truth it actually recognizes a relation of identity. This is a relatively new understanding which I offer considering the very well accepted fact that the first law of thinking is the principle of identity (A=A). In a sense, this chapter is an explanation of what fundamentality of the identity, as the principle of thinking, consists of.

5. What I believe is completely new in philosophy is the understanding that reason cognizes on the principle of identity and difference. An alternative theory of perception is offered which I found very exciting. I will try to sketch it as short as possible:
It is based on the possible answer of the old metaphysical question - what is a thing. A proposed answer is that sensible things, as we know them, are segments of space and/or time with inherent uniformity or, what I allow myself to call them - “identities in themselves”. I found support for this thesis in Plotinus’ who in his ninth Ennead says that: “It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings” and that things “could not exist without an inherent unity.” Other support came from Heidegger, who claims that “What the principle of identity, heard in its fundamental key, states is exactly what the whole of Western European thinking has in mind – and that is: the unity of identity forms a basic characteristic in the Being of beings.”
These particular uniform segments correspond exactly to the uniform segment in the stream of the electrical impulses provided by the senses, from which they are created. And this stream is uniform when light and sounds are uniforms, from which is generated. The light is uniform when material reality in itself is uniform, from which it is reflected (with certain imperfections). One uniformity mirrors other uniformity. Reality as we know it and reality in itself, although completely different in nature, have the identical identity-difference structure. Or, as Spinoza brilliantly put it: “The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things”.
In order to create things, which are uniformities in themselves, the reason must cognize where the impulse is uniform, where the difference begins, and divide it in sequences according to these boundaries. It actually identifies and differentiates. Particulars are substantivized identities in the series of electric impulses.
Furthermore, widely accepted understanding in philosophy is that “…a universal will be anything which may be shared by many particulars…” (Russell). Since it is shared by them it is something they have in common, and a thing in common is, of course, what is identical between particularities. Universals are substantivized identities between particulars or, what I allow myself to call them - “identities between”. It is fairly certain that in order to create these types of things it is necessary that the reason compares the particular or the less general things, to establish identities and differences between them, and to unite the identical ones in bigger wholes.

********************
These five sub-theses in their generality encompass almost the complete activity of the reason (epistemology, logic, aesthetics and ethics). Now the question arises, are these analyses sufficient to make a bold general conclusion that reason functions on the principle of identity and difference? Their perfect compatibility gives one another mutual confirmation.

* Essay on Human Reason: On the Principle of Identity and Difference

" Some misunderstandings regarding moral equality need to be clarified. To say that men are equal is not to say they are identical. The postulate of equality implies that underneath apparent differences, certain recognizable entities or units exist that, by dint of being units, can be said to be ‘equal.’ (Thomson 1949, p. 4). Fundamental equality means that persons are alike in important relevant and specified respects alone, and not that they are all generally the same or can be treated in the same way (Nagel 1991)"
-Stanford Encyclopaedia article on equality.

"Reality as we know it and reality in itself, although completely different in nature, have the identical identity-difference structure"
You made a claim about reality in itself. This I think runs counter to what Kant said.He argued that we never perceive things in themselves.
"Perhaps the central and most controversial thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason is that human beings experience only appearances, not things in themselves; and that space and time are only subjective forms of human intuition that would not subsist in themselves if one were to abstract from all subjective conditions of human intuition. Kant calls this thesis transcendental idealism.[7] One of his best summaries of it is arguably the following:

We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be, nor are their relations so constituted in themselves as they appear to us; and that if we remove our own subject or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, then all constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the case with objects in themselves and abstracted from all this receptivity of our sensibility remains entirely unknown to us. We are acquainted with nothing except our way of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which therefore does not necessarily pertain to every being, though to be sure it pertains to every human being. We are concerned solely with this. Space and time are its pure forms, sensation in general its matter. We can cognize only the former a priori, i.e., prior to all actual perception, and they are therefore called pure intuition; the latter, however, is that in our cognition that is responsible for its being called a posteriori cognition, i.e., empirical intuition. The former adheres to our sensibility absolutely necessarily, whatever sort of sensations we may have; the latter can be very different. (A42/B59–60)[8]"
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ka...

"1. Appearances and Things in Themselves
In the first edition (A) of the Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781, Kant argues for a surprising set of claims about space, time, and objects:

Space and time are merely the forms of our sensible intuition of objects. They are not beings that exist independently of our intuition (things in themselves), nor are they properties of, nor relations among, such beings. (A26, A33)
The objects we intuit in space and time are appearances, not objects that exist independently of our intuition (things in themselves). This is also true of the mental states we intuit in introspection; in “inner sense” (introspective awareness of my inner states) I intuit only how I appear to myself, not how I am “in myself”. (A37–8, A42)
We can only cognize objects that we can, in principle, intuit. Consequently, we can only cognize objects in space and time, appearances. We cannot cognize things in themselves. (A239)
Nonetheless, we can think about things in themselves using the categories (A254).
Things in themselves affect us, activating our sensible faculty (A190, A387).[1]
In the “Fourth Paralogism” Kant defines “transcendental idealism”:

I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances [Erscheinungen] the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not as things in themselves [nicht als Dinge an sich selbst ansehen], and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves [als Dinge an sich selbst]. (A369; the Critique is quoted from the Guyer & Wood translation (1998))"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ka...

"It is fairly certain that in order to create these types of things it is necessary that the reason compares the particular or the less general things, to establish identities and differences between them, and to unite the identical ones in bigger wholes"
This may be true but it doesn't support your conclusion. We can accept that human reason is equipped with the basic rules of logic, but that does'm simply that they also involve in perception.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "" Some misunderstandings regarding moral equality need to be clarified. To say that men are equal is not to say they are identical. The postulate of equality implies that underneath apparent differ..."

For example, if workers in a factory have identical work hours it would be a numerical equality. If each worker receives salary according to their labor, then we are talking about proportional equality. We can be very easily speaking of identity instead of equality. Therefore, good is when the number of work hours is identical for all the workers. Or, good is when the relation between the labor and the salary are identical for each worker. In its pure form the goodness is a relation of identity.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: ""every equality can be easily reduced to pure identity."
Take 2+2=4
This is an equality.
But that does'nt simple that 2+2 IS 4, only that it is numerically equal to it.
Let's analyze the right han..."

There are no two things that are absolutely identical, but also there are no two things that are absolutely different. Two things are identical at least because they both exist and, if not in reality, then they are identical because they exist in our thoughts. According to that, еvery identity is partial identity, according to a certain property of things that compare, and whenever we claim identity or difference, we have some comparison mode in mind. I am convinced that these ideas will correspond with the radical ideas of the English philosopher Peter Geach: “I am arguing for the thesis that identity is relative. When one says “x is identical with y”, this I hold, is incomplete expression; it is short for “x is the same A as y”, where “A” represents some count noun understood from the context of utterance- or else, it is just a vague expression of a half-formed thought” (Geach, 1972, 238).

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "" Their perfect compatibility gives one another mutual confirmation."
The fact that a set of views are consistent with each other doesn't confirm them. For example:
1. Sugar is bitter
2. Sugar ha..."

I guess this is my linguistic imprecision. Instead compatibility we can reach the conclusion by the method of induction.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: ""2. Beauty
• Rhyme is a relation of identity between one of two or more words or phrases according to the final sounds;
• Rhythm is a relation of identity, according to the time interval between th..."

It is clear that their application in the creation of a certain structure will result in a certain beauty if not more, at least in relation to another structure where there is a completely chaotic combination of elements from which it is made of. They have been used by artist for centuries and they work.

Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "" Their perfect compatibility gives one another mutual confirmation."
The fact that a set of views are consistent with each other doesn't confirm them. For example:
1. Su..."
Ah, right. But this runs into Hume's problem of induction right?
https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.a...

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: ""2. Beauty
• Rhyme is a relation of identity between one of two or more words or phrases according to the final sounds;
• Rhythm is a relation of identit..."

Well, yes. Beauty (in general) must be something which every beautiful object have in common. Also, what is notable in the classical definitions (Stanford, beauty) is that, despite the others, the use of two terms with the aim to define beauty is repeated over and over again: symmetry and proportion which, in their essence, are types of identity relations.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Arguably, that claim cannot be verified. Our experience of the world is mediated by factors beyond our control.We never perceive reality in itself. How a..."

Well, let's forget the term causality for now and say that "the theory is built on the foundation of a cognitive process confirmed in the natural sciences"

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: ""Reality as we know it and reality in itself, although completely different in nature, have the identical identity-difference structure"
You made a claim..."

If we can have knowledge of the reality as we know it and if we know the manner in which reality as we know it is created through the cognitive process, then we can deduce claims about reality in it self without "observation"

If you like I will send you the relevant chapter.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "" Their perfect compatibility gives one another mutual confirmation."
The fact that a set of views are consistent with each other doesn't confirm them. F..."

Yes, Hume's problem of induction remains...

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: ""Reality as we know it and reality in itself, although completely different in nature, have the identical ide..."

However absurd, each theoretical attempt to refute the thesis that external reality does not exist, it has the counterargument that each theoretical attempt presupposes the existence of reason (subject) that theoretizes, and with that the possibility of existence of the Descartes’ demon that deceive us. Consciousness can never be transcended. Kant calls this vicious cycle, the inability to prove the existence of the external world, ‘Scandal of Philosophy.’ We are therefore left with the choice to accept this initial ontological principle as a self-evident and intuitive truth, merely as a belief, with no proof.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Arguably, that claim cannot be verified. Our experience of the world is mediated by factors beyond our contro..."

You are quite right, but this argument goes for any other theory

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: ""Reality as we know it and reality in itself, although completely different in nature, have the identical ide..."

There is a way. Please send me your email and I will send you the relevant chapter

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/co...
"Constructive empiricism is a view which stands in contrast to the type of scientific realism that claims the following:

Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. (van Fraassen 1980, 8)
In contrast, the constructive empiricist holds that science aims at truth about observable aspects of the world, but that science does not aim at truth about unobservable aspects. Acceptance of a theory, according to constructive empiricism, correspondingly differs from acceptance of a theory on the scientific realist view: the constructive empiricist holds that as far as belief is concerned, acceptance of a scientific theory involves only the belief that the theory is empirically adequate."

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "I get the feeling we're talking past each other. We need to find a way to reach some sort of consensus.

Could you find a substitute for " a relation of identity"? Or perhaps give a detailed defini..."

“a "thing,, is nothing but a bundle of coexisting qualities” (Russell)
If thing "x" have the quality (property) "z" and if thing "y" have the quality "z" then they are identical according to the quality "z"

Identity is a tripartite relation encompassing a minimum of two things which are objects of comparison, and a minimum of one property according to which they are being compared.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Arguably, that claim cannot be verified. Our experience of the wo..."

Instead discussing about the validity of science in general, on a more concrete level, I don't find any reason to disbelieve this:
cognitive process happens in the following sequence: first of all, light, sound, and other external world signals reach our senses. Sensory organs turn light, sound, and the rest of the sensory signals into electric impulses suitable to be processed by reason. These electrical impulses through the nerve pathways arrive in the brain which is the material carrier of reason. After they reach the brain, the processing of the electrical impulses by the reason begins and as result we obtain sensations, perceptions, or content of sensory experience in general. See "Principles of Neural Science" (Kandel, et all., 2000, chap. 21, p. [411-412]) or especially the conclusion, page 428.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Arguably, that claim cannot be verified. Our experience of the world is mediated by factors beyond our contro..."

This is an attempt to explain reason with reason and I guess it must be circular...

Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "I get the feeling we're talking past each other. We need to find a way to reach some sort of consensus.

Could you find a substitute for " a relation of identity"? Or perh..."
Ok so that was not how I understood relation of identity there.
So two things are identical if they share at least one property.
Are these properties restricted to either accidental or to essential properties, or just all properties?

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "I get the feeling we're talking past each other. We need to find a way to reach some sort of consensus.

Could you find a substitute for " a relation of ..."

All properties. Also, reason can identify and differentiate between relations like, for example, analogy is an identification between two relations of objects. (However it is not clear what is the difference between property and relation).
Could you please tell me how do you understood relation of identity?

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Arguably, that claim ..."

I accept your remarks, language imprecision (to late for corrections now), except for the mind-reason distinction. It just makes things more complicated. I believe, contrary to Kant, that reason plays an active role, much more important than it is usually thought, even at the lowest sensory level because even the simplest sensations are in fact creations of the reason.

Also, there is justification for doubting in scientific truth but simply I take them as axioms. Inductive method and the existence of external reality- also. I'm in a hurry :)

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Well, then I think I'm beaten."

Haha! As I see you have some serious philosophical insight (university prof?) and I would be very happy if you read my book and I would be very happy to see your review.

https://vernonpress.com/book/434

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "University Prof?
LOL
15.5 year old teen"
Are you kidding me?

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "University Prof?
LOL
15.5 year old teen"

How come you know so much about philosophy?

There is at least one more major theory of truth you have not mentioned - the Pragmatic theory.
Further each of these theories have believers who will argue 'hard' versions and 'soft' versions.
And that's before you get into how debates over 'realism' about the world versus 'anti-realism', put further twists on the debate.
Truth is a highly contested area of metaphysics and the number of specific or particular theories that would fit beneath the broad headings mentioned above would number in the hundreds.

Also, I don't really think you should put deflationary theories as "another line of thought". Today there are three main theories (Correspondence, Coherence, Pragmatic) then the sub-theories and twists on theories I mentioned above. As to deflationary theories the term is really a description or heading for a group of theories of which Pragmatic theories and Tarski type theories are versions.

So better to say modern theories of truth tend to fall into one of two general groups. "Robust" theories of which Correspondence theories and some Coherence theories are examples and "Deflationary" theories of which some Coherence theories, Pragmatic theories and theories of the kind Tarski proposed are examples.

So talk about deflationary theories is just a way of referring to a group of truth theories that try to deflate the metaphysical importance of 'truth' while robust theories are that group of truth theories that tend to insist on there being strong metaphysical implications.
Also, deflationary theories tend towards anti-realism (about the world) while robust theories tend towards realism (about the world).

Ah, ok. I was following the article I linked to.

That article did mention pragmatic theories.

Anyway. any thoughts on the rest of this argument?

Hmm. Well I can offer a definition of what I believe reason to be and I can offer an outline of where I think reason arrives in the process chain from initial perception to higher intellectual function but without spending thousands of words analysing a significant number of points in previous posts between yourself and Stojkoski I can’t do much more. The reason being that I can’t see anywhere that either of you have provided a definition of reason. In philosophy there is an old saying often trotted out (for good reason – “Define your terms!”) If you don’t define your terms you end up talking past each other because you are essentially talking about different things and you have no way of bringing the conversation back to common ground – here, the nature of reason.
Stojnoski starts off talking about reason but almost immediately starts on a long discussion on the nature of truth. According to Stojkoski ‘truth is a relationship of identity’ making it a correspondence theory of truth. As we have noted there are other truth theories but even if we were to accept Stojkoski’s version of truth (I don’t) I can’t see how it any of this relates to reason. Reason is mentioned several times but merely as something that performs a function. To quote “…for reason to extract these common properties, it needs to perform an identification.”; “…reason recognises truth…”. Well I can use my mobile phone to extract information from an environment (take a picture) or to recognise (Googles reverse image search function) but my mobile does not reason. These are functional transformations or actions that reason performs after the fact but they are not reason itself.

‘Identity’ gets a definition but reason does not. And identity on its own is not reason. ‘Thinking’ is added at one point but again gets no definition. Is thinking identical with reason? Certainly not in my book. I might think I like chocolate but that in my book is not reasoning. It is simply an expression of preference. Thinking is obviously a part of the reasoning process but they are definitely not synonymous. Further, does Stojkoski think that the language of mental reasoning and the language of verbal reasoning are “identical” to use his terms? I don’t know, because again definitions are missing. In my view and in the view of the vast majority of cognitive scientists, they are not the same language. Closely related to be sure, indeed it is likely that verbal language is an emergent property of mental language, that verbal language is predicated on and is possibly even supervenient (in a minor sense) on mental language but it is not the same.

There follows a long section on ontology (the nature of ‘being’) but still no definition of reason. This then devolves into a description of ‘uniform segments of time and place’ and how these relate to sensations which I cannot understand at all and I have read Heidegger and Spinoza. I suspect that Stojkoski’s grasp of technical philosophical English fails him here. There may be something to what he says but…

And still no definition of reason.

Then a discussion about the nature of universals where it is posited that things held in common across universals are identical. I think Stojkoski is confusing universals and particulars here but again I can’t follow the argument.

I could go on point for point through each comment making points like this but since no-one has supplied a definition of reason it would take up a lot of room arguing small points but coming no closer to what reason actually is! Stojkoski does make one thing clear if I understand him and that is that he conflates reason with truth. That to me and to many other philosophers that is just flat wrong. In fact it’s a very old platonic type of argument that is very much disputed. I also note that because Stojkoski does not define reason you end up arguing on his ground about the nature of identity and notions of truth rather than about reason. You should have turned around and for your very first comment asked Stojkoski to “define your terms – what exactly is reason?”

So, for what it’s worth here is my off the cuff definition of reason – a process either verbal or mental, whereby arguments, affects, ideas or parts of the world are compared and contrasted each against each other, using a suite of tools ranging from logic to inference to arrive at conclusions of correspondence, coherence or pragmatic usefulness. Note that for reason to undertake this task the objects and ideas must be reasonably settled in form and understanding and you must be conscious of such which means that reason comes after all processes of perception. Indeed, contrary to Stojkoski’s insistence that reason enters the processing of perceptions, reason is at the very end of the process that runs from the initial perception of an object through the cognitive processing of that object, to the understand or full recognition of an object at which point reasoning can be applied. I have studied psychology and cognition at the level of Bachelor of Science, Psychology and I can very confidently assure you and Stojkoski that contrary to his statement that “Sensory organs turn light, sound, and the rest of the sensory signals into electric impulses suitable to be processed by reason” reason does not, indeed cannot enter at this point of the process. This is flat factually incorrect.
Cognitive science would break this process down to something like this:
> External stimulus reaches a sense organ and is translated into electronic and chemical signals
> Those signals are used to transfer information from the site of initial perception to the areas of the brain where that form of perception is processed. Reason cannot read or even access chemical and electronic signals and so it is utterly blind at this level.
> The processing is distributed. For instance, in sight there is a part of the brain that breaks the image signals into its component parts and vertical lines are processed in one part of the brain, horizontal lines in another, diagonal lines in a third, curves in a fourth, colour a fifth etc. Again, the distribution and the nature of the processing would utterly defeat any attempt for access by reason.
> The image parts are then re-assembled into a holistic whole and made available to understanding or recognition. This is an extraordinarily complex process still not yet fully understood by science, so I won’t try to break it down. Now depending on your definition of ‘reason’ you might argue that reason could enter the frame here, during the process of creating a fully formed, stable and recognised object (including mental objects like ideas) for the conscious mind. Kant makes this type of argument when he states that the “intuitions” of time and space are forms of reason. Personally I think time and space are applied at somewhere near this level but that they are applied unconsciously as part of upper level object formation within the mind and since my definition of reason is clearly one that requires full consciousness (one might even say the highest levels of consciousness) my definition of reason would deny that this is where reason enters the picture.
> At this time we initially become conscious of what this thing is “I see an apple”.
> Finally, consciousness and reason can work together. At a low level consciousness and reason are double checking the received data against other objects in the environment to confirm that our lower level processes have not made a mistake “Oh! I see the low light fooled me. It is not an apple but a peach.”
> Higher level reasoning, my full blown version of reason if you will, is that very last action. It’s not an apple, it is a peach, [reason enters] “the reason I thought it was an apple was because the low light conditions changed the way my colour processing worked thus fooling me.” That’s reasoning. Compare, contrast, infer, check for logical consistency.

So, reason is last on the scene. It comes late and it is slow. Far slower than the lower level processes of chemicals and electric signals. It is the last thing.
Consider also the fact that we make decisions about what to do prior to becoming conscious of our decisions i.e. we make a decision and somewhere between a number of micro seconds to a few seconds later we become consciously aware of the decision we have already made unconsciously at a previous moment.
See: https://www.wired.com/2008/04/mind-de... This is uncontroversial today and the implications are quite clear if you hold a definition of reason such as mine – reason cannot access or process raw signals from the sensory organs as Stojkoski suggests because we aren’t even conscious of what is going on until some time after the deed is done.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: " it is very possible to doubt science ( like people like Feyerabend [...] have done) ..."

I'm not sure that this is what Feyerabend is saying. Feyerabend is an epistemologist and his concern is largely one about the method that scientists use to come to conclusions of fact. He's not really questioning the truth of scientific outcomes. I think mostly he would agree that they are fairly solid. What he is questioning is the standard myth about scientific methodology being one of completely objective research. He claims that the process of framing the theories to be tested was in fact influenced by historical forces, personal biases and structural constraints around the universities or businesses who funded the research. So certain theories never got tested because the biases meant that they never had a chance because they were rejected out of hand for ideological reasons. That needn't mean that the results of that research were incorrect, simply that the process wasn't as ideologically pure as the myth of objectivity would suggest.
I think Feyerabend would concede that most theories once validated tested for repeatability were in fact quite valid.

Thanks for clarifying Feyerabend

Sadly, I think stojliokski isn't active on this thread.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Sadly, I think stojliokski isn't active on this thread."
I need some time

For?

Gerard wrote: "Hmm. Well I can offer a definition of what I believe reason to be and I can offer an outline of where I think reason arrives in the process chain from initial perception to higher intellectual func..."

Thank you for your message Gerard. First of all, this is a synopsis for a book. The purpose of this text is to provoke curiosity rather than reaching an end point.
Definition of reason:
Reason is the capacity for cognition, logical thinking, moral judgment and aesthetic judgment. This definition or its variations can be found in dictionaries. However, it cannot be said that these and other existing definitions completely satisfy my philosophical curiosity because they simply inform about what the reason does and not the ways in which it does it. The definition that I reach in this sense is that reason is ability to identify and differentiate.
We may say that cognition, logical thinking, moral judgment and aesthetic judgment are general areas of appearance of reason. Within this general areas reason appears in many specific forms. The points in the text are these specific appearances of reason. Truth is product (goal) of logical thinking or, product of reason, or one of the faces of reason. So is beauty, justice and every other point in the text.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "For?"

English is not my native language

Stojkoski wrote: "“Reason is a ‘capacity’..."”

I still think you are arguing from functions (“capacity”) not definitions. Being human is also a capacity for doing these things but being human and reasoning are not homologous. With regards reason being the ability to “identify and differentiate”, this is still a capacity definition.
My definition makes clear that this is done using the comparative tools embedded in either mental or verbal language. Because you have not tied your capacity to “identify and differentiate” to an actual process or lower level tool you stay open to the claim that you have not defined reason in any meaningful way. Similar to my camera analogy a tree in the park can identify and differentiate water storage in the ground, the harm caused by disease or insects and its access to sunlight. In all cases the tree can, at a low level, identify and differentiate and then change its shape or produce then transport chemicals to different locations in its overall structure so at one level it is even making 'decisions'. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146...

I believe that these processes in trees are carried out at pretty much the same functional biological level as the differentiation process is at the level of sight or sound signal processing. It’s unconscious, it’s a (relatively) simple biological process carried out by all living things (right down to single cell organisms who will move away from unwanted stimuli), and it’s not accessible by higher thought. To me that, by definition, is not reason. Plants do not reason. Single cell organisms do not reason.

Similarly gestalt perceptions are processed at a biological level and are presented to consciousness as a de-facto tied bundle. Consciousness cannot access the process of bundling, so according to my definition which I take to be conventional, that process has no right to be called reason.

My definition holds to what I believe is the standard definition of reason, that it is a practice deeply embedded with “logos” i.e. it is to partake of argument, speech, logic, reasoned discourse, etc.
To me, to use reason in the way you are is simply to redefine reason in a way that in the end makes it useless because it describes everything from how grass grows in certain directions, how a clam decides when it is time to blow sand out, how a digital camera defines light and dark, how a thermostat decides when to turn the air-conditioning off, to how to develop a descriptive model of the pure mathematics underlying quantum theory. You are making reason do things which are so far apart and so different as to be effectively meaningless. You achieve this by arguing that if two things are homologous at a highly abstract level then they are the same thing on the ground. You are drawing a bow so long as to make reason simply no longer function in its intended manner. It no longer serves to delineate anything precise enough to be useful.

Identification and differentiation take place all around us on multiple levels in multiple objects on multiple levels but unless the process of identification and differentiation can be accessed by conscious thought then it just ain’t reasonable to call it reason.

With regards Kant by the way, it is true that Kant does discuss reason as a higher function but he also makes it very clear that the intuitions of time and space are applied at a lower level (a level I would say that is somewhat similar to the perceptual level which you argue for) than higher functional thought but that he still considers them a part of the process of reasoning – for Kant an Intuition is “a cognition, a presentation with consciousness, which refers to objects (unlike sensation, which refers only to the mind, insofar as a sensation is a modification of the mind.)” G. J. Mattey’s Kant Lexicon. And here, as in so many other places, I depart from Kant in despair. While Kant’s general point that the very nature of our perceptions and their phenomenological ontology for us is a pointer to the nature of the outside world, his specific arguments about how this takes place are often so confused, so often stated without follow up as to “HOW”, as to leave one shaking one’s head. Can’t be too hard on him though. It was a profound general insight and he had no access to our findings in cognitive science.

Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "For?"

English is not my native language"

Not mine either.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "For?"

English is not my native language"

Not mine either."

Sorry for mu delay Dulnath. I am active now. Please read my comment about perceptions. I want to hear your opinion

Gerard wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "“Reason is a ‘capacity’..."”

I still think you are arguing from functions (“capacity”) not definitions. Being human is also a capacity for doing these things but being human and..."

"Because you have not tied your capacity to “identify and differentiate” to an actual process or lower level tool you stay open to the claim that you have not defined reason in any meaningful way" This is quite true. It seems certain that this operation has its material foundation, i.e. that a type of material process in the brain corresponds to identification and differentiation, the discovery of which remains the task of neurophysiologists. Lets say that this is a progress toward meaningful definition.

"Consciousness cannot access the process of bundling, so according to my definition which I take to be conventional, that process has no right to be called reason". Why do you think that only consciousness acts can be called reason? What about dreams?
There must be a difference between identification and differentiation of reason and identifications and differentiation in nature which I cannot precisely refer to now. However there must be a connection also. We as living beings have originated from unliving nature and we are part of the nature.

Stojkoski wrote: "Gerard wrote: "Hmm. Well I can offer a definition of what I believe reason to be and I can offer an outline of where I think reason arrives in the process chain from initial perception to higher in..."
Assume you only had sight and none of your other senses. Further assume that you were looking at a perfectly uniform white background. Now, how is there differentiation in PERCEPTION? I agree that once you perceive it you may identify it, and differentiate it from things that are different from it. But this happens after you perceive, after the process Gerard outlined has happened.

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "Stojkoski wrote: "Gerard wrote: "Hmm. Well I can offer a definition of what I believe reason to be and I can offer an outline of where I think reason arrives in the process chain from initial perce..."
This is paragraph from the book: "Absolute uniformity of everything means naught. Reality to a man that lives in a completely white room without windows and drinking only milk would be practically zero. In a similar way, absolute difference of everything means naught, destruction of reality as we know it. The existence of our spirits, of our reason, is completely preconditioned and proportional to the existence of diversity and uniformities in the world through a dialectical play where their existence is mutually conditioned according to the law of battle and unity of the opposites."
I guess you are asking the right questions

Stojkoski wrote: "Why do you think that only consciousness acts can be called reason? What about dreams?’..."

I claim only conscious acts can be called reason because of the definitions of reason that I find in dictionaries. You mentioned previously that you had found definitions where reason was described as ...the capacity for cognition, logical thinking, moral judgment and aesthetic judgment and to my way of thinking each of those activities requires consciousness. I also find this definition from the Oxford English Dictionary: "The power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements logically."

Further, my definition of reason - the only one yet offered in the notes above - states the same assumptions allying reason to a long tradition that goes back to at least Plato that reason is connected to language and logic. Further, when I studied units in Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Mind at Uni this was always the understood meaning. Language and logic, and both requiring consciousness.
Dreams are something else again which I don't intend to debate, though I can't see how given both my definition or the standard commonly agreed definition can be reason as dreaming is not language or logic based in a form that would allow us to admit it as reason in any sensible way.

You have decided to re-define 'reason' for the purposes of your book. Fair enough, but if you do make a re-definition that goes so far against the commonly understood usage you are required by standard 'rules' of argument to state a very precise definition of what you mean by reason (which I still cannot see) and you would further be required to state exactly why and how what are normally understood to be biological processes of perception in psychology, neurology and philosophy should under your argument be re-designated as reason. i.e. a definition that would explain how your reason and the commonly accepted definition can both be called reason that would also go down to the level of showing in explicit detail how your definition could be said to hold at the level of unconscious biological processes.

I'm not saying it is impossible to make that case but I am saying you have not made it. I accept that biology does “identify and differentiate” but as my examples show so do grass, clams, trees, phones etc in the same way.
You have made a grand statement but you have not then pressed ahead and made your case in any substantive way. You haven't provided a definition that could then be applied to the biology of perception in a manner that is valid and logical and hopefully convincing.
You have not done this in any of your words above or in the quotes you have provided from the book. You appear thus far to simply have said "I am going to redefine 'reason' in a new way and then apply it to a process where reason is not commonly thought to exist, indeed where almost everyone else explicitly denies it can exist and I'm going to do this without providing any explanation that would justify me doing this.

I honestly believe that the reaction of note and 99% of undergrad students in philosophy reading your claims would have a similar set of questions:
1. Why? Why take a word that has a commonly understood meaning and re-define it so counter-intuitively in this way? Why define it in a manner that is almost the opposite of its commonly accepted definition?

2. What does this new definition gain us as far as explanatory power goes? What new knowledge or way of looking at the world is gained that could not be done by using the commonly accepted definitions but arguing for some connection between biological perception and reason as opposed to turning definitions on their head? How does this new definition and usage teach us more about reason?

3. Since you have now re-defined the word 'reason' what word are we now going to use for the "The power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements logically." because 'reason' cannot be both this definition and your new definition being as they are almost in opposition?

4. Why bother to redefine 'reason' down to the perceptual level when we already have good biological descriptions of this process that don't require a wholesale re-definition of the word 'reason'?

5. And of course how is it that something like reason, if we take it's commonly understood meaning, can possibly function at an almost cellular level?

But you simply make the claim that this is reason for you and then you don't appear to do the basic work of philosophy, particularly where a new concept has been introduced, which is to explain how it functions, what it's definition is and why it is a good argument (has explanatory power).
You just make the claim then walk away with none of the work done.

You might think think that I keep harping on this and I do, precisely because you have not actually presented anything else substantive to argue against. No mechanism, no definition, no reason. I have to keep coming back to this point because there doesn't seem to be anything else. Just a statement that you intend to use this word in a new way without providing any "reasoned" justification.

I can't really see that I will have any more to say on this as there really isn't enough content here to argue against. Just a bald statement that seems counter-intuitive with no justification or reason.
Basically I'm tired of repeating "You haven't given a justification. You haven't given a definition. You haven't shown a mechanism."

Dulnath Jayasighe wrote: "I agree that once you perceive it you may identify it, and differentiate it from things that are different from it. But this happens after you perceive..."

Precisely. And if this identification is done at the conscious level using language and logic (mental or verbal) it is commonly called reason. If it is done at the biological level it is commonly called things like 'simultaneous contrast effect' or 'successive contrast' and is a function of both neuronal firing rates and neuronal synchrony. Not reason, just the availability or absence of chemicals or electric impulses.

https://plato.stanford.edu/search/sea...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ka...

Reason is a cause for thought.

G. wrote: "Reason is a cause for thought."

No. It's not.