And I don't intend to mount one. — Quixodian

I don't believe you have one to mount, or you would have done so by now...it's been years...

Which is what is generally regarded as empiricism. You commonly cite that position in these arguments, yet when you're challenged on it, you deny it: — Quixodian

LOL, I was simply outlining the different kinds of knowledge as I see them. If you think that picture is wrong, you are free to critique it.

You're appealing to sense-experience, empirical observation, or whatever you want to call it. At least be clear about that. — Quixodian

I am not appealing to anything, rather I'm just saying that what is usually counted as knowable in the intersubjective sense is what is confirmable by publicly available observations, mathematics or logic. If you can come up with another category of knowledge that is definitely intersubjectively confirmable then present the case for it or admit you cannot.

For example, you apparently think enlightenment is intersubjectively confirmable: well, a great number of people thought and still think Osho was enlightened, but I bet you think he was a fraud. How do you establish the truth in cases like that, eh? How do you know Gotama was enlightened? The authority of tradition?

But if you then associate 'taking on faith' with religion, then you fall back on the faith/reason dichotomy which is writ large in our culture and which I say which leads to stereotyping. I think the way you're evaluating it is like this: that Buddhism is a religion; religion is not something that can be validated empirically; therefore it's a matter of faith. — Quixodian

So, you are saying that because stereotyping is socially undesirable, assuming for the sake of the argument that the faith/reason dichotomy does lead to it, that we should not accept any distinction between faith and reason?

In any case I see the dichotomy as being between belief and knowledge, not faith and reason. belief operates as much in science as anywhere else, or at least provisionally accepted hypotheses do. When we can directly observe something, prove it mathematically or logically, then we know it, all the rest is provisional acceptance or committed acceptance (faith).

For example, a skilled musician may have a deep understanding of how to play a complex piece of music which they can't explain, but only enact. — Quixodian

I have in my last post acknowledged the difference between knowing how and knowing that, as I have done many times on these forums, so this is a strawman. If musicians cannot explain how they are able to play complex pieces of music, then it is precisely "knowing that" that is lacking. They can't explain it, but they can do it. It is the same with altered states of consciousness; how they are possible, metaphysically speaking, what the implications of them are, is not known, but how to attain them may be.

Notice how generally any assertion of 'higher knowledge' (Jñāna) is categorised as 'mystical' or 'spiritual', which kicks it into the long grass, so to speak. But really in those cultures to which it is endogenous, such an understanding is quite prosaic. There is a cultural milieu in which it is intelligible, navigable and communicable. Precisely what our culture is lacking. — Quixodian

Other cultures do have different understandings of what constitutes knowledge. For example, the Chinese traditionally believed that acupuncture works by dissolving blockages in the channels, called meridians, through which the vital energy, called Ch'i was believed to flow. None of this is intersubjectively confirmable; you either believe or you don't, or you reserve judgement because there is no evidence for it either way; how acupuncture really works is not known. On the other hand, the flow of blood through veins and arteries or lymph through the lymphatic system can be confirmed by observation; how it works is known.

So, the fact that other cultures have their different faiths and beliefs does not entail that those faiths and beliefs are true or not true. We simply don't and cannot know, because they are not susceptible of publicly available evidence.

I'm not saying it is wrong for people to believe in Ch'i; if it feels right to them then I see no problem with it, but intellectual honesty demands that it be acknowledged that the belief is not grounded on empirical evidence, mathematics or logic, the only methods we have for intersubjective demonstration or proof.

You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too.

.

But in western culture, a hard and fast division has emerged between what is categorized as faith and what is categorized as scientific knowledge. There’s nothing corresponding to ‘jñāna’ in our lexicon, so all that can be said (usually dismissively) is that it’s something ‘spiritual or mystical’. — Quixodian

The way I look at there is direct observation which can be personally inter-experentially and publicly intersubjectevly confirmed. such as there is a tree next to the end of the shed, water boils at 100 degrees C, it is raining here and now and countless other examples of observation of the phenomenal world which yield all our discursive or propositional knowledge.

Then there is mathematics and logic.

Then there are beliefs about what cannot be confirmed by observation, mathematics or logic; that is those things we take just on faith.

Then there are altered states of consciousness which may be temporary or permanent. I don't seee how a claim that either faith or altered states of consciousness yield discursive or propositional knowledge can be justified. I've never seen any argument that could convince me of that. On the other hand although they cannot be classed as forms of "knowing that", they could be classed as knowledge in the sense of "know-how".

Now, I could be convinced by my own experience that such states do yield quasi-discursive knowledge, in the sense of my own discourse just with myself, but how could I ever demonstrate that to another who was not already convinced of the same? And how could I ever be sure, as opposed to merely feeling sure, that I was not deceiving myself?

All that said I have faith in certain "intimations" I have gained from such altered states, and form creative work, but I find I cannot clearly articulate them, and I would never count the fact of my having such intimations as justification for anyone else to believe anything.

So when you say

The stages and states of realization can be verified inter-subjectively. — Quixodian

I don't believe the kind of inter-subjective verification at work in such contexts is in the same class as the inter-subjective verification that operates in empirical observations, mathematical proofs and logic, because the latter kind of verification is such that it will definitely convince any suitably unbiased and competent agent, and the competency itself can also be publicly demonstrated. The same lack of public demonstrability applies to aesthetics; it can never be definitively shown that a creative work is great for example.

If instead of saying ‘the thing in itself’, you were to say ‘the world as it is in itself’ or ‘reality as it is in itself’ or even ‘reality as it truly is’, I think it would convey the gist better. — Quixodian

Sure, but presuming holism the thing in itself would presumably be the same as things in themselves, the world in itself or reality in itself.

If we discussed Kant's notion of Transcendental Idealism and then I ventured into his ideas that surround that, I believe I would be justified. — schopenhauer1

I don't think so. Kant was no anti-natalist afaik (although he failed to procreate afaik). I see Kant's project as determining the limits of reason to make way for faith. he didn't want to, couldn't, say what the thing in itself is.

You know the arguments, you said. They have nothing to do with personal preferences. Personal preferences should not be the determinate for what others should have to endure. — schopenhauer1

I wonder how many people see life as something to be endured as opposed to something to be enjoyed, and birth as being a gift rather than a burden. Anyway, it has everything to do with personal preferences, or if nothing to do with personal preference then people will do as they are determined to do and that's the end of it, and I am not going to be drawn any further into these futile under-determined arguments.

That being said, you can't just talk about this stuff in isolation. Schop's ideas were a system infused with pessimism. The Thing Itself is ultimately striving nature of existence — schopenhauer1

The OP says nothing about Schopenhauer's pessimism. The fact that Schopenhauer thinks we can know something about the thing in itself by introspection, that it is blind will or striving, says nothing at all about whether the thing in itself is good, bad or neutral.

Nietzsche accepted the will but for him it is a good thing, the source of everything truly beautiful, interesting and alive.

It seemed to imply you don't judge procreation, people, but I do.. Like I was judging someone's clothes or trying to make someone feel bad or something else of a negative connotation of how "judging others" is used. — schopenhauer1

I know you judge procreation, I don't know if you judge people for procreating. I imagine you must judge that they are at least ignorant if not culpable. I should have been clearer and added that I judge neither procreation nor procreators, beyond thinking that it is not such a good idea when the world is already over-populated. I certainly don't see life as an inherent negative, as you apparently do. All I can think about that is that your experience must be very different than mine. I love life and have never regreted being born. If I could choose to come back again and again I would.

A new study published Thursday in the journal PLOS Climate found the wealthiest 10% of Americans are responsible for almost half of planet-heating pollution in the US, and called on governments to shift away from “regressive” taxes on the carbon-intensity of what people buy and focus on taxing climate-polluting investments instead. — CNN

If only governments would do that, but I have little confidence that they will. It's not just governments and industry but the voters; if we all consistently voted against any political party that did not call for decreased consumption, massively increased taxes on the wealthy, and, fro example restrictions on the size of newly produced ICE vehicles and heavier taxes on existing vehicles based on their CO2 production, then things would change. But we don't.

It seems to me that most people don't really care beyond paying lip service to the slogans that say "something should be done about global warming" and will vote against any political party that threatens to introduce policies that will impact negatively on the lifestyles they have become accustomed to.

When are people going to realize that industry and governments will not do anything significant unless forced to do so by the people?

I understood this thread to be about whether we can know the nature of the in-itself not about whether we can "escape" from it. Presuming we can or cannot escape would be to already presuppose that we know what it is.

You said,
I've told you before that I have never had a desire to reproduce, but I don't sit in judgement on those who do. — schopenhauer1

Does that sentence state that you sit in judgement on procreators? Do you sit in judgement on them?

Lame-duck sauce response, but at least it's not snide. That is to say, it really didn't address much of what I wrote. — schopenhauer1

That which I didn't address was off-topic in this thread, and I have no interest in going over your anti-natalism arguments again.

Eek. You think I am simply "judging people" like procreation is a fashion trend that I find repulsive? You negate the very reason for the judgement (and not the 'judging'- there is a difference). — schopenhauer1

Did I say you are judging people? I understand you are against procreation, and you are entitled to your opinion. I know all the arguments, and I am not convinced by them. Not everyone must think as you do.

What is the motive behind throwing more people into the world? We want someone else to go through the disturbing episode. After just extolling our abstraction abilities, you cannot hide behind "instinct" for why. We clearly can do the opposite of our initial desires. We do it all the time. If you say it is so that they can experience the joy that you sometimes feel, that is ignoring the logical other side of life. That is becoming the judge and executioner for someone else, making it their burden. And so the disturbing episodes continue. — schopenhauer1

If you weren't going to give a pat optimistic snide remark towards the pessimistic stance, carry on and ignore. — schopenhauer1

When I said this:

We cannot accept our mortality and that has produced vain dreams of eternal life and paradise, while we cannot even be sensible enough to be happy on Earth during our brief existence between two nothingnesses. — Janus

I was not aiming for a pessimistic characterization of human life in toto, but rather in general. I think some individuals can accept their mortality and find peace and be sensible enough to be overall happy with their life onon Earth; I know I am.

Others are able to have unshakeable faith in eternal life, or in the possibility of progress towards enlightenment. I don't claim those things can be logically or empirically justified, but that doesn't seem to matter to some. Others, perhaps a majority, don't seem to be interested in thinking about such things at all. I don't draw any conclusions or make any judgements about such matters: I am agnostic.

I've told you before that I have never had a desire to reproduce, but I don't sit in judgement on those who do. I think the world is over-populated, but I don't see that as being anyone's fault. Many people mindlessly reproduce, and the world would arguably be a better place if all people reproduced mindfully, or even better satisfied their desire for children by adopting from poorer nations (if only the governments would make this much easier than it currently seems to be from what I've heard and read). Like everything in human life, it's a complex issue, involving many competing interests.

It's not arbitrary, you are correct, it's subtle and delicate. Small changes drastically change how we conceptualize items as being one or many (is a tree one thing, or many?, etc.) — Manuel

I think the predominate view is that a tree is a single organism with many parts, and those parts have further parts and so on, but the tree is nonetheless a self-organizing whole; and that seems to make most sense to me.

The boundaries of what we call "inanimate entities", such as oceans, mountains, deserts and rivers are much less clearly defined, but from that it doesn't follow that those categories are purely arbitrary or even purely constructed in terms of human interest, in my view.

100% agree. It makes no sense as to how these microphysical things could lead to anything really... — Manuel

:up:

The difference for h. sapiens is that we are aware of our existence in a way that animals are not, and it's a difference that makes a huge difference. — Quixodian

For sure a huge difference, but not only, or even predominately, in a good way. You can say we are higher than the other animals because we can do things which they cannot even imagine, but we are also lower than the other animals because we cannot, taken as a collective, live harmoniously with them or even with each other.

We can think in the abstract, and that has produced great intellectual achievements, and works in the arts, but it has also produced horrors, nightmares. We cannot accept our mortality and that has produced vain dreams of eternal life and paradise, while we cannot even be sensible enough to be happy on Earth during our brief existence between two nothingnesses.

But you are hitting on a most interesting point, often overlooked. What you say about animals is indeed correct. It raises the same issue, the animal is doing the individuating (in so far are we are able to discern what they do), meaning, it's an internal mechanism of the creature. And I think this generalizes to all creatures, that have a minimum level of experience (above a slug, for instance). — Manuel

For me this raises the question as to whether the embodiment of an animal is not already the beginning of individuation. There seems to be the natural boundary determined by bodily sensation, between me and not me.

As to the things in the environment they affect the body differently pre-cognitively it would seem such as, for example, one appears as a tree and another a waterfall. One I can move around, remove branches and leaves from, maybe use its bark, even cut it down and burn it, the other I can go under and be washed, or watch the sunlight sparkling on the water and feel the fine mist of water vapour on my skin and so on. So, it seems to me that thgere is no arbitrariness in the ways we come to differentiate the things in the environment, they all have real pre-cognitive affactes on the body, on the skin, on the nerves, it seems.

This is another mystery to me, the lack of identical aspects to object in the world. This changes in the micro-physical world, but that's virtually alien to lived experience.

Interesting, we seem to have different starting conditions, but agree on similar conclusion. — Manuel

Our understanding of the microphysical seems to show us that things are not merely as they appear. But then the micro-physical itself is another, sensorially augmented, appearance. It's truly a mystery.

We do seem to agree, even if we took different paths to get there.

It cannot be denied that we are unique in possessing symbolic language, but other animals are each unique in other ways. The fact that we have written symbolic langauge and the more comprehesnive recursive self-awareness that symbolic langauge enables means that we can adapt to all kinds of conditions and live virtually anywhere on the globe. We are undoubtedly the most adaptive animal.

But we are like other animals in that we mostly care about only our own kind and a few other species that are useful to us (and we often treat those animals appallingly), Our recursive thinking should have enabled us to see past that limited focus, and in fact arguably did in hunter/gatherer times. Throughout most of post-agricultural history we have been too busy rationalizing our desires to take what we want without regard for the consequences. That is changing today in some quarters, but it may well be too little too late.

I would prefer 'the human condition'. — Quixodian

That's because your thinking is mired in human exceptionalism. This kind of thinking brought us to the dire situation regarding the environment we find ourselves in today.

I mean, a good deal of epistemological questions do not affect our day to day life, we pursue them because we find some of them interesting. What makes a tree seperate from the ground a *fact* about the world? Or a chair different from a table? Is that a fact about the world or something that pertains to the way we conceive the world?

It seems to me that hard problems remain, no matter what we postualte, individuality being a hard topic, as is identity and grounding relations… — Manuel

We see animals treating tress differently than the ground; for example, we see birds perching in trees, goannas climbing trees to escape from us, and countless other examples showing that animals perceive the world divided up roughly the same as we do, and of course animals appear to be percipients just as we are, so we imagine they must see the world as divided up in ways that have nothing to do with them.

For me the idea that the world is divided the way it is into the countless organisms, processes and relations which reliably reveal themselves to our observations merely on account of human consciousness stretches credulity. To me, the mystery is as to what that diverse world is in itself; I don't even consider what to me seems the most implausible possibility that it is all a human production.

Individuality and identity have their issues, to be sure. I tend to think of individuation as something real that forces itself onto our attention, and identity as just a kind of placeholder that signifies that individuals can be identified on account of their differences. No two things in the world are exactly the same. Individual things are perhaps never the same from one moment to the next, some more obviously different through time than others, of course. The hill near my house, covered with tall eucalypts looks the same from day to day, but if I cast my thoughts back a few years I remember the trees were much shorter (Flooded gums grow 3-4 meters a year).

The example of Schopenhauer pointing out that Kant assumes plurality when he argues for the existence of "things-in-themselves", isn't an intuition. Individuation is something we do to nature, it's not something that is inherent in it. So, in this sense the "thing-in-itself" makes more sense than "things-in-themselves". — Manuel

How do we know that individuation is something we do to nature, and not something nature does to us? After all it is not we who decide what will appear to us and how it will appear to be divided up. The idea that something completely unitary and undifferentiated could give rise to an infinitely complex individuated world of things and relations seems more implausible than that there are indeed things in themselves. Of course, we don't know, and we don't have to decide either way, because it really makes no necessary difference to how we will live our lives.

I think your reasoning is on the right track, though I very much disagree with calling Schopenhauer "stupid" - heck the fact that a good deal of the fathers of modern physics - Einstein, Schrodinger and Pauli all considered him a genius, cannot lead me to that conclusion. — Manuel

I am not impressed by what others think unless it accords with what I think, or they can change my mind by arguments powerful enough to be convincing, so I will not be swayed by an appeal to authority in the form of an appeal to genius. I don't claim to be right, just expressing my view. I was writing somewhat in haste, and I was reaching for a word...mis-something...but I couldn't quite find it, so I settled for "stupid".

Of course, I don't think he was stupid in the sense of possessing a low IQ, or being unable to understand the philosophical tradition or come up with new ideas or being a poor writer, but perhaps he was too enamored of his own brilliance to see past his presuppositions. Anyway, the word I was searching, I've since found: "misguided".

As I've acknowledged our introspective intuitions may give us insight into the nature of the "in itself", but the question then would be "which intuitions?" since we have each seem to have our own. In any case even if some intuition gives insight into the in itself, that it does could never be demonstrated. This is the glaring issue with purported so-called "enlightenment".

:cool:

So we arrive at the mighty mystical X yet again ? It's fine to posit X as long as we admit (and don't even care) that we don't know what we are talking about ? Why not not posit it ? I'd rather just call paradox or confusion what it is. Why bluff ? — plaque flag

I don't see this as mystical. A perspectiveless world cannot be imagined, but it also cannot be imagined that the world absent any percipients could be anything but perspectiveless; I don't believe it can be imagined as simply non-existent, I think that notion is even more incoherent, more mystical.

Thanks, I've read the book. Meillassoux actually rejects, and purports to refute, the correlationist argument as I remember it. From the fact that subject and object are inextricably bound together in the human lifeworld, it does not follow that there are any subjects and objects absent humans, or that subject/object is intrinsic to the Real.

It does seem reasonable to think that what exists prior to or apart from humans has the potential to resolve itself into subject and object if and when humans are present. I acknowledge this is difficult to speak about without being misinterpreted, since our language itself is obviously part of the lifeworld.

So, it does not seem to me at all self-contradictory to say that the cosmos existed prior to humans provided it is not presumed to say what the nature of a perspectiveless existence could be.

I don't doubt that some things make sense to some and not to others, which means that this issue is probably not susceptible to rational argument at all.

With what we know now, matter is not nearly as vulgar as we once thought. Nevertheless, we can't say it's dead exactly (that's a human category, after all - it's in biology too, but it's a bit unclear it seems to me), but we can't say it's alive either. It just is. Maybe it is a blind striving of some kind, a sort of impetus or tendency to just go on, and perhaps, complexify itself, to some degree. — Manuel

But it seems some of the old problems remain, in slightly different terminology. Thankfully, it's not a very popular current, because of its obvious problems, not unlike panpsychism, which also has its issues and followers. — Manuel

Yes, we can't say matter is alive in the sense that organisms are understood to be alive, because that would dissolve the distinction between life and non-life, and we can't have that.

The interesting point for me is that if we are not concerned with anything beyond how things appear to us, then we have no need for the idea of fundamental substance, because such a thing could never appear to us, end even if it could we would have no way of knowing whether it was fundamental.

So, the in itself, for me, is just a placeholder for something we cannot help but think, but have no way to identify, and that is why I find Schopenhauer's philosophy to be as "stupid" as those materialists he criticizes.

This stupidity is exemplified in this:

It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is. — Schopenhauer

There is no way of knowing whether causality is or is not inherent in the nature of things, since all we know are things as they appear to us, and from that no conclusion about any absolute natures are warranted. Unfortunately, it seems that human pride cannot stand the fact that there are, just by definition, things we simply cannot know. If appearances are all we know, and I would include in that category both extrospective and introspective appearances, and if appearances may be deceptive, then it naturally follows that there are things we cannot know.

But if you can make sense of the world existing independently of humans, I politely challenge you to share that sense here. — plaque flag

It's simply the idea that the cosmos existed before humans. I don't understand what you think is problematic about the idea.

The only normativity I understand to be essential to rationality comprises coherency, consistency and non-contradiction. I see none of those in the idea that the world (universe, cosmos) exists independently of us, although it should be clear that by "world" I obviously don't mean "the (human) life-world".

You are basically asking me if my not being able to make sense of the square root of blue means that there is no square root of blue. There's no great answer here. Nonsense does not compute. — plaque flag

I don't see the idea of the world existing independently of humans as being nonsensical or contradictory at all, unlike 'round squares" or "the square root of blue", so I'm afraid your thoughts on this point remain incomprehensible to me.

I find it funny that there's discussion about materialism in relation to Schopenhauer, for the very thing I quoted is quite relevant, — Manuel

:up: I made the point earlier that "will' might be thought of as energy, which in the current paradigm is understood to be matter. But then how is a "blind will" contrasted with a "dead matter"? Perhaps we can think of matter ("will") as alive, but not conscious, but then it would not seem to qualify as mind.

I hope I beat the same drum to a different rhythm. — Banno

Drum or meat?

Right. So when I make this point, which to me is a crucial point, please don't keep saying 'oh yeah, so what. Everyone knows that.' It's kind of annoying. :angry: — Quixodian

The point is more a sociological than a philosophical one.

Most of the issues I refer to are the consequences of the attempt to apply the methods of science to the problems of philosophy. — Quixodian

Sure, but that is just one among approach among others. Are you saying that some approaches should not be pursued?

Also, I think the (ideal) scientific attitude of attempting to find flaws in your position rather than searching only for confirmation of it, is also best philosophical practice.

It's not that they elaborate an explicitly materialist worldview, but that their 'ordinary language' philosophy abjures metaphysics, and leaves the realist attitude untouched. — Quixodian

The realist attitude is the only possible attitude in the context of the common world we all obviously share. The naive move is to extrapolate this attitude as an absolute. To be sure many people with no interest in metaphysical ideas do this simply because they don't see any possible context other than that of the phenomenal world.

As a general comment on your post I think you are over-generalizing, jumping to unwarranted conclusions about what most people think. In any case since most people are not here discussing this topic with us, what does it matter what they think? I see arguments as being important, not concern, whether negative or positive, about general consensus.

I must admit, I do not get how Will-Proper (Will unaffected by the PSR), is somehow the "real" reality if it is all double-aspect all the way down. — schopenhauer1

I agree, it seems incoherent.

But I do think there is indeed a blind spot in some thinkers. It's a macho thing. Toughminded oriented I'm-a-truth-computer thing. — plaque flag

I always liked James' characterization of thinkers as tough-minded or tender-minded.

How many people do you think have really taken on board Kant's 'copernican revolution in philosophy'? It is far less part of popular culture than 'the selfish gene' or many of the other tropes of neo-darwinian materialism. — Quixodian

I don't know everyone, so I can't answer that. I do doubt that there are not many well-educated people, including scientists, who realize that all we know is how thing appear to us. I find that there are some in science, in phenomenology, in religion or spirituality who want to claim that absolute knowledge is possible, but I see all of those as fundamentalists, the most deluded and potentially dangerous kinds of people.

I also think there are probably many, likely a good majority, of people who have no interest in thinking about these kinds of questions, so we are really only talking about people who are, at least in some sense, philosophically minded.

I think we are trained into being virtual foci of responsibility. — plaque flag

We are morally responsible for our actions, (although then only insofar as they will impact others) but we don't have to answer to anyone for our thoughts. I can tell you what i think without any expectation or concern that I am going to convince you to think as I do.

To me we can either call protons instrumental posits (useful fictions) -- or fallibly accept them as real. I use to choose instrumentalism, which is still reasonable, but I now prefer fallible realism. — plaque flag

The third option would be to understand the arguments for both positions and to reserve judgement on the basis of what seems undecidable.

The world-from-no-perspective is not something I can make sense of. — plaque flag

Do you think that the fact that world-from-no-perspective makes no sense to you entails that the world cannot exist without relying on any perspective?

I just don't see the point about science being only about how things appear to us as being difficult to understand or adding anything that hadn't already been pointed out by Kant, and I am skeptical that the predominate attitude among scientists is that science yields absolute knowledge, so I think the purported "blind spot' is a paper tiger.

You can't get to the thing itself by way of empirical observation. You will never get at it that way. That is where the realists/materialists are missing subjectivity/inner aspect of being, etc.

Hence he says:
Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature of things from without. However much we investigate, we can never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and sometimes sketching the façades. And yet this is the method that has been followed by all philosophers before me.
— WWR — schopenhauer1

We have, on the one hand, science which looks without to investigate phenomena and attempts to understand how things behave and interact, the world of phenomena is an interactive world that obviously only reveals itself via perception. We can observe things as they appear to us and this affords an understanding of their existence, as observed phenomena.

On the other hand we have phenomenology which looks within and attempts to understand how we sense, feel, think and understand ourselves and the things which appear as phenomena. It seems to me this is also a case of observed phenomena. A different kind of phenomena to be sure, but phenomena nonetheless.

Humans have always had intuitive imaginings and feelings about how things really are, because we generally don't like uncertainty. However, neither science, phenomenology nor intuitional imaginings about what feels right can be demonstrated to be reliable sources of knowledge of how things are beyond how they seem as observed phenomena.

We can believe, have faith, that any of these investigations yield truth and certainty about the absolute nature of things, but this can never be more than faith.

On the other hand, we can assess what seems to be the most plausible source of knowledge about how things really are, but there are no absolute criteria for assessing plausibility, so it remains for each individual to form their own opinions.

Schopenhauer's claim that introspection yields knowledge of the thing in itself might seem plausible to you, but it does not to me, the reason being that he claims that a blind will is fundamental, and I see that as failing to explain how we all see the same things, unless it is interpreted as energy which is structured to produce the things we perceive, or a universal mind which thinks those things into existence (pace Berkeley). The first would be a materialistic interpretation and the latter an idealistic interpretation, but would there be any difference that actually makes a difference between these models if the latter is not understand as an intentional, or even a personal, universal mind; a God?

I'm here to discuss philosophy with other people online, not to be referred to texts. If that book or article makes an argument that you think is significant you should be able to outline the argument and say why you think it is significant. You said you got a "bollocking" when you presented that article; do you really believe that most of us here have a blind spot that only you are not subject to?

The discursive self 'is' this coherence. Continual self-contradiction is no longer self-contradiction, but the discursive self dissolving into confusion. First philosophy is explication as much as inference. One need not prove a condition for the possibility of proof, though it seems like one of philosophy's job to fallibly make these conditions explicit. — plaque flag

We can say there is a discursive self, just as we might say there is a poetic self, a feeling self or an experiencing self, but are these selves anything more than ideas which overarch fields of inquiry or practice?

The way I see it this applies to the self tout court. I always liked Kant's use of the cogito, rejecting the Cartesian idea of self-as-substance, but highlighting the fact that in discourse every thought is an "I-think". Is that along the lines of what you are getting at?

It presumptuous to claim that I'm not seeing a point that you cannot explain. If you think there is a point I'm not getting, then you should be able to say just what that point is.

That passage does not seem to explain anything in a coherent way. If you think it does, can you explain it to me?

Because there never is an observed without an observer. Notice this has even become manifest in atomic physics. And also please notice that I’ve acknowledged that we can treat ‘the world’ as if there were no observer for practical purposes. The mistake of naturalism is then to extend that to a metaphysical claim that we see the world as it really must be absent any observer. That is the point of The Blind Spot argument that I got a thorough bollocking over some years back but which you will be pleased to know has now morphed into a book. — Quixodian

It simply follows grammatically that if there is an observation, there must be something observed, and something observing. It would only complicate the sciences to attempt to include the observer; how would you include the observer in the theory of plate techtonics for example?

I don't claim that we see the world as it really must be absent any observer, and I don't think that is a necessary presumption of the sciences. We can treat science as investigating the world as it appears; no need to make any claim beyond that. All the evidence indicates that the world was around long before humanity came on the scene, but that doesn't tell us anything about what kind of existence it had independent of human observers. About that we can only guess, and not too coherently at that!

That there has to be an observer in order that there be an observation does not entail that what is observed is dependent on the observer, even though how it is observed to be obviously does depend on the observer. You seem to be confused on precisely this point.

:up:

However, if "all-is-mind" in some sense (the details are always different), then you can have your cake and it it too, sort of thing. — schopenhauer1

Only if you can make a coherent case; and finding that, it seems, remains the "holy grail" of idealism. "Some sense" is not a coherent case. I view Berkeley's idealism as being the most coherent, as it posits a universal mind that thinks absolutely everything into existence. Then the world would not merely be, per absurdum, my idea.

Before I proceed, would you like citations, or is it just the subject itself is always going to be this way? — schopenhauer1

I don't know whether citations will be needed: I just want to know if anyone can explain how Schopenhauer's philosophy can be understood to be a coherent and explanatory metaphysic.

All this sounds very vague and hand-wavy, which would be OK if we were doing mysticism or poetry.

OK, I'm very familiar with that oft-quoted passage and have actually read Schopenhauer's WWR, admittedly not closely but "skimmingly". I was asking for your take on how it works and not merely a statement of what is either faith or a tautology regarding there being a "subjective ground".

So, we know that our ordinary understanding of what it means to experience always already includes the notion of a subject, but what justification do we have for extrapolating that ordinary linguistically enabled understanding to a larger claim there is a substantial subjective ground to the totality of what is?

In one sense, from a certain perspective, "the world is my idea" is reasonable enough; although it would be better stated as "my world is my idea", because it seems absurd to claim that the animals world is, from the animal's perspective, my idea or that our world is my idea.

In Berkeley's system everyone's world, including the animals' is God's idea, but that cannot be so if there is no God, but merely a blind will that has no idea. I want to know how you understand Schopenhauer's view to be making sense.

Schopenhauer is vociferously atheist. I don't find it unclear, but I understand it takes something like a gestalt shift for it to make sense. — Quixodian

Can you give a brief explanation of just what Schopenhauer's idealism consists in? I mean if the unifying factor that explains the commonality of experience is, for Schopenhauer a mindless will, what is there to justify thinking of it as mind rather than as energy, which is equated with matter via mass in the current scientific understanding?