--- Charles Brown <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> wrote:
> ^^^
> CB: Archaic ? Like from 1880 or so ? Surely, you
> don't want to go
> there, because your favored philosophical issues
> will be shown to be
> rooted in some truly archaic, pre-Socratic
> philosophers.
"Rooted in" in the sense that modern physics is rooted in Aristotle. The ancient debates between say Plato and Aristotle have little if anything to do with the modern ones, because both lacked a notion of "matter" or "mind" in the modern sense.
>
> Why do you think it is "wrongfully" founded ?
>
It presupposes a sharp dividing line between subject and object, which did not exist before circa Descartes, a demarcation between "stuff out there" and "stuff in my mind."
> ^^^^
> CB: Actually, as I understand it "there is nothing
> but matter and
> motion is its mode of existence".
Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Is there any conceivable evidence for it? What is a "mode" anyway?
So, ideas are
> material too.
Then what is the difference between materialism and idealism, given that idealists would say that matter is idea?
> ^^^^
> CB: You aren't being charitable because it's not
> the case that you
> have the valuables
Yes, I do. :)
>
> Oh, and ideas first came into existence with the
> human species,
> symbolic ideas anyway. Dinosaurs have thoughts, but
> not symbolic
> thoughts.
How do you know this?
> ^^^^
> CB: The main idealists are theists. Materialism is
> synonymous with
> atheism.
Idealism and materialism have little to nothing to do with theism, regardless of what Engels may have believed.