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RE: SUO: Monolithic ontologies (was ontology as science)




Chris,

	I didn't say that the hypothesized naturalists wouldn't agree about
what is "natural".  I just assumed that they would disagree about many other
things.  As I've said before, my notion of a supernatural object is anything
that is regarded as existing outside of space/time, e.g. immaterial souls,
Platonic forms, etc.

-Ian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Angus [mailto:chris.angus@btinternet.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 11:56 AM
> To: Ian Niles; 'West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE'
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: RE: SUO: Monolithic ontologies (was ontology as science)
> 
> 
> Ian
> 
> If you cannot agree about what constitutes 'natural' how can 
> you agree on
> what is 'supernatural'.  This seems to be a very shaky line 
> of reasoning.
> 
> Regards
> Chris Angus
> 
> > > MW: It seems then that we need to identify what you wrap up into
> > > naturalism. I suspect if you put 10 naturalists in a room 
> for a week
> > > they would not all agree about everything.
> 
> > IN: I'm absolutely certain they wouldn't agree about 
> everything, but that
> > doesn't matter.  As long as they agree that there is, 
> currently at least,
> no
> > good reason to posit supernatural entities, that would be 
> enough, I think.
> > By supernatural entities, I mean thinks like immaterial 
> Cartesian souls,
> > Platonic forms, Leibnitzian monads, Berkeleyan ideas, and 
> all the rest of
> > the stuff which was assumed to exist outside of space/time 
> purely on the
> > basis of a priori theorizing.
> >
>