On 29 Aug 2010, at 21:20, Rex Allen wrote:
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Stephen P. King <stephe...@charter.net
> wrote:
Excellent topic and comments! Naturalism does seem to be a
natural condition of humans given their predilection for
supernatural or
supranatural explanations of events that have no simplistic
explanations,
i.e. in terms of their common every day experiences which are
limited by
their socioeconomic conditions. I am not sure what Idealist
Accidentalism
would entail… Could you elaborate on this, Rex?
By "idealist" I'm referring to metaphysical idealism...that what
fundamentally exists is mental, not physical. And by mental I mean
either consciousness or existing only as an aspect of consciousness.
For example, there is my conscious experience of a dream, and then
there are the things that appear in my dreams that I am conscious
of...houses and chairs and trees and people. Both categories of
things are mental. The trees that appear in my dreams only exist as
an aspect of the dream.
And by "accidentalism" I mean the theory that nothing that exists or
occurs is caused. There is nothing that connects or controls the flow
of events. The only rule is that there are no rules to appeal to.
So "idealist accidentalism"...the view that what exists is mental, and
that there is no underlying process that explains or governs this
existence.
If idealist accidentalism is correct then there is no theory at all.
But idealist accidentalism is a theory (even if vague)
So there is no theory, and there is one theory.
So 0 = 1.
Contradiction.
So idealist accidentalism is refuted.
You may save it by insisting that idealist accidentalism is not a
theory. It would be a mere philosophical injunction of the type
"dont' ask, don't search".
hmm...
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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