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Can everything simply exist for no reason?

The question is ambiguous between - does anything that exists have a cause, and does anything that exists have a reason or a purpose? In Platonism, mechanical causation is not possible without teleological causation and ‘reason’ is a broader category than causation. For example, for Leibniz, an infinite regress of cause and effects is possible, but the entire series must have a reason for existing, and this reason must be outside them. The infamous PSR is not a theory of mechanical causation, but a principle of harmony that says God orders everything according to the best and the existence of something is its compossibility in relation to the whole. This is to say that a monad is compossible or exists not because of its logical possibility but its ability to add to the overall purpose of things. In this worldview, the purpose is the ‘why’ of things, and this teleology is immanent within the thing itself and not externally imposed. To exist is to exist as a thing that acts to fulfil its...
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If everything in the universe has a cause, what caused the first cause?

The problem with creation is this: God is infinite, so nothing outside it can exist. What is limited by something outside itself is finite. On the other hand, the finite being must exist for there to be any creation at all. This is how the problem was solved in earlier times: what is finite is composed of two principles, essence and existence. The finite entity does not have any genuine existence; its existence is derivative, i.e. through another, and no finite being can explain the existence of any other finite entity because it too would have its existence through another. Hence, whatever is finite is explained only by reference to the infinite. The Infinite, on the other hand, is a simple entity, it’s very essence involves its existence, hence its existence is not through another. Plotinus regarded this infinite being as self-caused, but to be the cause of oneself is to suppose a distance from oneself. It seems, however, his intention was only to point out that God is the uncaused c...
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Are Human Beings Inherently Good Or Evil

  If someone is inherently evil, then they cannot be good; if someone is inherently good, then they can do no evil; and if someone is inherently neither good nor bad, then they cannot be either. So, do human beings have a nature that can be characterized as either good or bad, and is deviation from one’s nature possible? If yes, then why? What is it to be good, and are human beings capable of being good? I will briefly defend a Platonic answer — within the state of nature, human beings are estranged from their true nature, which means that in the natural realm, so to speak, human beings are self-seeking and strive to dominate others. The goodness of human beings is present to them as an endowment and an ideal which has to be converted into an achievement. The process of negation of disidentifying with the false sense of self has a positive result, leading to the recovery of our true selves. The process of recovering one’s true self is the cultivation of virtue. The process of becom...
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Quine

  Quine is  working at the interface between language and reality. The epistemological question in the case of inference was – a) what justifies the transition from one thought to another? b) What explains the logical validity of inferences? To this, Frege’s answer was sameness of conceptual content, which later became sameness of sense and sameness of reference. If we are talking about semantic understanding, the epistemological question is: a) how do we discriminate between correct and incorrect usage of a word? b) How do we know how to apply the word correctly? To these questions, Frege’s answer was through grasping sense because it is the sense that determines reference. The ability to draw correct inferences and semantic understanding are products of our conceptual capabilities. To possess a concept is to have a norm or a standard of judgment about an object and to understand correct and incorrect use of concepts. The objective side of the content of concepts concerns the...
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Moving Beyond The Right Wing — Left Wing Dichotomy — 3

I find the following pattern playing out in the political field — group 1 says it is historically oppressed by group 2. It treats culture and norms as identities shaped by group 2 to enhance their power and subvert others. Norms are the means of gaining power over others, both mentally and physically. So for group 1, rebellion is freedom. It treats itself as a victim, which allows it to justify actions deliberately aimed at dominating others. Earlier hierarchies were justified by power; now they are justified by victimhood, but the desire for domination is the same. Yet this desire is cloaked as justified, a means to freedom for group 1. Their actions are morally pure; their moral purity is the problem; they are too good, and so are exploited by others. So now they should retaliate. They do to others what they claim others do to them, but it is not the same. There is a moral asymmetry here. Group 2 cannot be victims; that is not their identity. They put the bad apples in group 2, along...
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Anarchism

  I think what motivates anarchism as an ideology is a wrong concept of freedom which is seen as freedom from authority or complete self-determination but this concept is impossible. Perhaps the preachers of anarchism feel that the root of all evil is submission to authority and hence if we are free from authority we are then free from evil. But an anarchic state would be the same as Hobbesian state of nature where everyone would have a right over everything. So in such a state my freedom would exclude yours, so we would have an either-or situation. Or to put it in other words my freedom would cancel yours, so if I am free you cannot be. Clearly in such a situation there can be no rights and no freedom; you don’t get either without certain limits and a right to everything dilutes those rights and freedom that is exclusive ceases to be freedom at all. Hence the correct idea of freedom demands not exclusion but inclusion for it is inextricable bound by the idea of good. This is easy ...
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The Difference Between Advaita Vedanta And Madhyamika Buddhism

  For Advaita Vedanta but not for Madhyamika, everything except Brahman is unreal. Why is it unreal? Because they lack a self or an essence. What lacks an essence has no genuine identity, because what is dependent on another cannot also be identical with itself. A chariot, for instance, is nothing over and above its parts arranged in a certain way. It has no essence, no existence that is not dependent on the parts. It has no existence outside of human conventions that treat these myriad parts as a single entity. These conventions have no foundation in reality, and everything is a conglomeration of parts to which we ascribe an essence. For Advaita Vedanta, everything different from the self or anything that is or can be an object of the self is unreal. The Self is something that necessarily exists and is unnegatable, while the existence of the world is transitory and is negated in Brahman-realization, like dreams are sublated upon waking up. Why does the world appear to us if it is ...
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