Spinoza’s Dream : On Nature and Meaning

Meaning (significance) and __nature__ are this book’s principal topics. They seem an odd couple, like raisins and numbers, though they elide when meanings of a global sort—ideologies and religions, for example—promote ontologies that subordinate nature. Setting one against the other makes __reality__ contentious. It signifies workmates and a coal face to miners, gluons to physicists, prayer and redemption to priests. Are there many realities, or many perspectives on one? The answer I prefer is the comprehensive naturalism anticipated by Aristotle and Spinoza: "__natura naturans__, __natura naturata__." Nature naturing is an array of mutually conditioning material processes in spacetime. Each structure or event—storm clouds forming, nature natured—is self-differentiating, self-stabilizing, and sometimes self-disassembling; each alters or transforms a pre-existing state of affairs. This surmise anticipated discoveries and analyses to which neither thinker had access, though physics and biology confirm their hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt. Hence the question this book considers: Is reality divided:nature vrs. lived experience? Or is experience, with all its meanings and values, the complex expression of natural processes?

Meaning (significance) and nature are this book's principal topics. They seem an odd couple, like raisins and numbers, though they elide when meanings of a global sort—ideologies and religions, for example—promote ontologies that subordinate nature. Setting one against the other makes reality contentious. It signifies workmates and a coal face to miners, gluons to physicists, prayer and redemption to priests. Are there many realities, or many perspectives on one? The answer I prefer is the comprehensive naturalism anticipated by Aristotle and Spinoza: " natura naturans, natura naturata." Nature naturing is an array of mutually conditioning material processes in spacetime. Each structure or event—storm clouds forming, nature natured—is self-differentiating, self-stabilizing, and sometimes self-disassembling; each alters or transforms a pre-existing state of affairs. This surmise anticipated discoveries and analyses to which neither thinker had access, though physics and biology confirm their hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt.

Hence the question this book considers: Is reality divided: nature vrs. lived experience? Or is experience, with all its meanings and values, the complex expression of natural processes?

Meaning (significance) and nature are this book's principal topics. They seem an odd couple, like raisins and numbers, though they elide when meanings of a global sort--ideologies and religions, for example--promote ontologies that subordinate nature. Setting one against the other makes reality contentious. It signifies workmates and a coal face to miners, gluons to physicists, prayer and redemption to priests. Are there many realities, or many perspectives on one? The answer I prefer is the comprehensive naturalism anticipated by Aristotle and Spinoza: natura naturans , natura naturata . Nature naturing is an array of mutually conditioning material processes in spacetime. Each structure or event--storm clouds forming, nature natured--is self-differentiating, self-stabilizing, and sometimes self-disassembling; each alters or transforms a pre-existing state of affairs. This surmise anticipated discoveries and analyses to which neither thinker had access, though physics and biology confirm their hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt. Hence the question this book considers: Is reality divided: nature vrs. lived experience? Or is experience, with all its meanings and values, the complex expression of natural processes? Contents Introduction 1. Nature 1.1 An analogy 1.2 Categorial form 1.3 Selves 1.4 Society and culture 1.5 Summary 2. Silent Conditions 2.1 Conditions that elude observation 2.2 Examples 2.3 Rationales 2.4 Appraisal 2.5 Attitudes 3. Existence Proofs 3.1 Self-perception 3.2 Ephemeral conscious data 3.3 Percepts 3.4 Material objects and constraints 3.5 Emotion 3.6 Intuition 3.7 A priori existence proofs 3.8 Remarks 4. Other Ontologies 4.1 Illusion 4.2 Construction 4.3 Theism 4.4 Ontology and value 5. Meaning, value, and truth 5.1 Problematic 5.2 Context 5.3 Meaning 5.4 Significance 5.5 Value 5.6 Value’s relation to meaning and significance 5.7 Truth 5.8 Meaning/significance or truth 5.9 Is science indifferent to meaning and value? 5.10 Mysteries and mythologies 6. Practical Life 6.1 Overview 6.2 Needs and wants 6.3 Action 6.4 Error 6.5 Systems and their meanings 6.6 Two perspectives 6.7 Ethical practice 6.8 Culture 6.9 Innovation/Distraction 7. Mental functions 7.1 Meaning 7.2 Valuation 8 Last thoughts 8.1 Contingency 8.2 Spirituality 8.3 A paradox Bibliography Index Meaning and nature are this book's principal topics. Setting one against the other makes reality contentious. Is reality divided: nature vs. lived experience? Or is experience, with all its meanings and values, the complex expression of natural processes? Weissman champions the comprehensive naturalism anticipated by Aristotle and Spinoza: "natura naturans, natura naturata." Nature naturing is an array of mutually conditioning material processes