Obscurity

The practical can obscure the logical, the truly philosophical.
For instance, the concept of self is so apparently necessary in everyday life, that many can see no reason to investigate this concept. And most would not even agree that the self was a concept.

Quantity is everywhere in human thinking. The most common quantity is one. A investigation of our grammar reveals the singularity and plurality are constant concerns within our language use. Mathematics is only a specialized investigation of quantity. Quantity is fundamental to ALL disciplines, from natural science to religious traditions.

We speak of objectivity and truth, but perhaps we don't closely enough examine the connection of truth and emotion. To suggest that proof is successful or strong persuasion seems quite reasonable to me, but this suggestion meets with resistance.

I suspect that we desire some truth beyond opinion, and that therefore we are uncomfortable looking at the possibility that proof is founded


Quantity is always with us. All concepts are singular or plural. All human thinking is at least indirectly concerned with quantity, and the foundation of quantity is unity, oneness, coherence.

Our visual field is automatically broken into pieces, into objects. So even here, we find quantity, and this visual quantification meshes quite automatically with our conceptual quantification. Quantity is so much with us that we miss how fundamental it is to our experience.

Do we think that nature itself is broken into objects? If the physicists agree to such a thing, they are talking about particles far too small to be seen by the naked eye. At the human scale and in the human environment, physics suggests an unbroken continuity. Or doesn't it?

Why do we accept a statement as true? Does this statement agree with the rest of the statements we accept as true? Does this statement agree with our interpreted sensations?
Does this statement make us feel good?

How important is emotion in what we take for true? Is there an element of emotion in any consideration of truth?

I propose that we are so in love with our abstractions that we easily ignore what they are founded on. What are they founded on?