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Hi All, It has been a loooong time since I posted here. I've been roaming philosophical/spiritual landscapes and my explorations have led me back here. Go figure! I will talk about that on my wall as it is personal. I'm slow-reading DeWitt's book. I came across this line on page 213 (ch 11 Soul, Sensation, and Mind) and it struck me as very important: (Quote) The importance of this quote is its applicability to modern times since we are living in a culture of laws, for better or worse. The key a…

Great responses, guys, thanks! I find the concept of the Anticipations to be the most difficult to understand. Indeed for me, the notion that we are born with innate ideas makes no sense and I can understand its opposite, the blank slate. However, as Cassius describes it as faculty or ability, I can start to get my head around it. The concept of "justice" is an awkward one to deal with because of the various ways it can be described. Look a the daily news to see what I mean. Which "justice" is a…

Thanks, Don. That is very helpful. Clearly, the important detail in all of this is differentiating between the sense or feeling of fairness and actual thoughts of it. My reference to the blank slate is related to the latter. What is blank are the actual ideas, thoughts, concepts, etc. that are later conceived via the interaction of the Anticipations with experiences. Am I understanding this correctly? Now, how about "divine nature"? If we are not born with actual innate ideas, what is going on w…

Ok, think I'm sloooooowly getting the idea here. The feeling that something is unfair is the operation of the faculty of anticipation while the actual thought of "this is unfair because..." is the operation of the rational mind. That mind can make mistakes due to personal issue, incorrect information, ideoligical bias, etc. But the original ability of sensing "something" unfair is the faculty in operation that requires interpration. Interestingly, I came across this picture this morning. I think…

(Quote from Cassius) That is almost exactly where I was headed with my original post. When I read that passage in which DeWitt names "justice" and "divine nature" AND "other such abstractions" I took them to be named anticipations. So I wanted to understand what makes them so and then could we start sorting out (listing) others. But I see I was making a mistake in being so specific. But I think Don has a good point about them being "always true" in their role as primary ways of knowing. If they …

Ok, there's quite a bit to digest here. I will say this much. As I said at the beginning of this thread, I thought this was important because it "...puts to the test every law of the land to determine whether it harmonizes with the innate idea of justice". To me, this means the anticipation of justice is key to those small things in our culture such as the legal system, laws, legislation, government power, etc.!! In other words, the Anticipations as a key part of the natural ability to understan…