The one thing we can say with significant confidence is that Bibi wants to stay in power for as long as possible. That does add strength to the claim that he will expand the war with Hezbollah to a full-scale war.

By the same token, Bibi's state of mind may not be the best course to follow into Israel's actions.

One thing which I did find interesting - I cannot recall were I saw it - is that this time, the IDF has not bombed Beirut's main airport. Every time they've launched a huge war against Lebanon, the airport is always destroyed. Not this, at least, not now.

Hezbollah has significantly expanded and upgraded its missile capacity, which is why it is suggested that the Israelis are reluctant, despite the rhetoric, of going all in with Lebanon.

Regardless, Israel would pulverize Lebanon in such an event, no doubt, but they will also receive significant damage as well.

I don't see how they can beat Hezbollah, if they can't beat Hamas. And then what? A defeat against Hamas and Hezbollah?

If things are, trivially they exist. If something exists, it has to have a way of existing, for if a thing had no way of existing, obviously it couldn't exist.

For things to have a way of existing, they must follow certain patterns or habits or uniformities. This is the way they are able to exist.

But to ask why the way of existing is the way it is, doesn't have an answer. One can say, but I can imagine other ways of existing that are not the ones we have. Perfect. But those imagined other ways would have to have their certain patterns, habits or uniformities. That is how we are able to say something exists.

So, I think the answer to this is, that nature must follow "laws", or nature would not exist. Beyond that, the question loses clarity in terms of being able to say anything about it at all.

- You think those Israelis living close to Lebanon are happy to just come home and wait for the tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets to be fired at them at some time? — ssu

The fire will stop once the Gaza operation stops, Hezbollah has been very clear about this.

- Second of all, when Israel is already in a war. Why not try to kill two flies at the same time? You are already running around with the flyswatter and not minding your peaceful doings, so why not? — ssu

But they couldn't "swat the fly" in 2006, when they only focused on Lebanon. How could they do so now, when they are in a worse condition, militarily speaking?

I agree that Netanyahu wants to keep this going as long as he can, but, the question is how long will they have before economic and international pressure continues to pile on and make this even worse for them?

For the first time, illegal settlements are being sanctioned by the West, this is due to the conditions on Gaza. It's something the West can do to give Israel some minimal pushback, given that Biden is unwilling to call this whole thing off.

:shade:

It's all good. More flavor the merrier! :victory:

yeah, I’m talkin’ to YOU, Arthur!!! — Mww

:angry:

It's an embarrassment, Biden could end this with a phone call, he refuses to do so.

No of course not. It's been far from peaceful, but it's also been (relatively) contained for a long time.

The issue then is, can the Israeli economy, and the Israeli's themselves (the citizens) be able to sustain an in-depth fight with Hezbollah?

Last time it did not go Israel's way, despite the heavy losses for Lebanon.

If they can't beat Hamas - which they can't. How can they beat Hezbollah?

Of course, they could start the full scale war in a week or whenever, that can happen for sure. But it will hurt them, and war fatigue is a thing, especially for a small country like them. This Gaza situation is much, much longer than what they usually take for "wars" (this is no war, it's a total massacre).

Man, this asinine, devilish, death spectacle is interminable, and Netanyahu wants it so, that he may stay in power.

But at this specific point, I would guess - without evidence, which can be dismissed without evidence - that there won't be a wider fight with Hezbollah.

I think it would have happened by now. But who knows? And Biden is still not phoning Netanyahu to tell him this is over. Gross.

Maybe consider making an announcement in General or something, not everyone will go to the Shout Box and see that specific post. Which will save you repetition 25 times over.

Close. External objects stimulate something in us that cause an idea to arise, but the idea has no resemblance to the external object at all, only a kind of causal connection. That's pretty radical, I think.

Yes, what Kant says about objects being spatial and temporal is unique to his formulation and very profound.

Hume's conclusions about causality are also pretty Copernican, I think. And Locke formulated the "hard problem" 400 years ago, so...

There are several Copernican ideas, some people have a larger amount of them (Kant has more than Descartes, in general) than others.

Basically, new additions and unique formulations of similar ideas. But that's merely how I see it.

Yeah, give me a minute, I have my damn quotations in paperback, makes it very hard to give quotes without typing too much.

"Hence you will have reasons to conclude that there is no need to suppose that something material passes from objects to our eyes to make us see colors and light, or even that there is something in the objects, which resembles the ideas or sensations that we have of them. In just the same way, when a blind man feels bodies, nothing has to issue from the bodies and pass along his stick to his hand: and the resistance or movement of the bodies, which is the sole cause of the sensations he has of them, is nothing like the idea he forms of them."

In this case, objects stimulate an innate mechanism which leads us to form an idea of the world. Notice that the objects just stimulated the blind man with the stick, but his ideas were inside the whole time. Similar observations apply when Descartes mentions the following:

"But then if I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I just happen to have done, I normally say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax. Yet do I see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons? I judge that they are men. And so something which I thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty of judgement which is in my mind."

Leibniz, on the other hand, replying to Locke, points out:

"The reason why there is no name for the murder of an old man is that such a name would be of little use... ideas do not depend upon names [words with definitions, in this context] ... If a... writer did invent a name for that crime and devoted a chapter to 'Gerontophony', showing what we owe to the old and how monstrous it is to treat them ungently, he would not thereby be giving us a new idea."

We already know the meanings of words, prior to definitions.

Incidentally, I believe that Kant's ideas on a priori judgments is somewhat like this. He says that we can gain knowledge without an empirical component just by thinking something out, but I believe in all cases, some minimal external stimulus is needed to get the mind going, otherwise, not much will arise.

Do you think his predecessors had a system as complete as the three Citique’s entail? — Mww

Not at all.

He is one the great figures in philosophy no doubt, all I question is his own evaluation of his total uniqueness.

His completeness and exactitude in trying to build a systematic philosophical system has no parallels that I can think of.

And I am refusing to read Hegel. :)

It depends on how you think about the systems of other figures, for Kant his system was radically new, for Cudworth, it was quite old (going back to Protagoras, Parmenides, and others).

Attempting to be concrete, Plotinus seems to me to be doing a (in some respects) rudimentary analysis based on a very similar idea, though his specific formulation includes different "categories".

Or Locke, he was already creating a basis within which we can think about nature differently, say primary qualities as opposed to secondary ones, one of them belonging to objects, the other not.

Kant's formulation, as quoted by you, applies more (it seems to me) to, say, certain aspects of systems of metaphysics, such as Leibniz, or Plato. Hume didn't really have an explicit metaphysics, which Kant said led him to crash on the shores of skepticism. To an extent, but Hume was not as radically skeptic as he is assumed to be.

Kant's explicit formulation of "synthetic a priori" judgements is probably his most novel formulation. And also making things in themselves different from phenomena, but in this latter respect, that idea was not entirely new, but arguably better articulated by him. His repeated emphasis on the range of human knowledge is excellent, but, found in Locke in a different formulation.

Kant points out that aspects of the phenomenon are known to us prior to experience with the world. He lays out clear and persuasive arguments for this. What you do next with that information is up to you. — frank

As does Descartes, Leibniz and Cudworth. What Kant added with more clearness, it seems to me, was his clarity in identifying things in themselves and contrasting these with phenomena, and specifically his mentioning of synthetic a-priori judgements, how we can expand innate knowledge absent experience.

Ah, good to see they have added a bit of his epistemology in the SEP. I will continue to propagandize him.

The notion of things-themselves is particularly interesting. Is it the One (the simplest possible thing, beyond thought), as Plotinus says? Is it mere dust and atoms, as Cudworth intimates? Are we in contact with it through the will, as Schopenhauer insists?

It's not clear it's even an object, in any traditional reading of that word. I suspect the best we can do here is to find a conception which is the simplest and attempt to proceed from that.

The idea that science cannot study something elemental or basic, can be counterintuitive or nonsense for some.

I also enjoy pre-Kantians very much! At the moment I'm especially interested in Leibniz, who is definitely one of the "bad guys" in CPR and a huge influence. There seems to be some connection between Cudworth (which I haven't read at all) and Leibniz, so it is going to be very interesting to find out something about this as well. These people worked as little in vacuum as we do, but the literary practices were much more liberate, at least compared to academic philosophy of today. — Olento

Excellent! :)

Kant has a very interesting take on Leibniz metaphysics in the Amphiboly appendix in the Critique.

Yes, Leibniz mentions Cudworth to Locke near the beginning of the latters New Essays, because Cudworth's daughter was very close to Locke - they had a brotherly/sisterly relation.

Sure, I tend to find - with notable exceptions - that the classics offer just so much more value than contemporary stuff, which has become so academic, abstract and technical that is loses virtually any "popular appeal".

Most people can read Descartes or Berkley.

To my understanding Locke thought that we cannot represent the corpuscular microstructure of objects, but there's at least some sort of correspondence to the perceived secondary qualities. Nothing prevents us in principle to penetrate deeper and deeper to corpuscular microstructures, and thus learn about the reality with scientific method. So yes, in a way the ultimate structure is unreachable and "noumenon", but it is conceptually different kind of noumena from Kant's, in my interpretation. And yes, my knowledge of Locke is thin and based on entry level text books. — Olento

It was mine too, until I read pre-Kantians, from Descartes to Hume, they are significantly richer than as they are usually presented. Part of the reason I have a slight "push-back" feeling to Kant, despite genuinely admiring him, is that once I did read the classics, I found them to be supremely rich.

Even though a case can be made that Kant was "superior" to them in overall specific argument structure, such claims are very much exaggerated. I find certain discussions in Descartes, Locke and Hume, more substantial than in Kant, in certain areas, not in others.

Cudworth, who was pointed out to me by Chomsky, says the same things Kant says, without the sophisticated theoretical construction, and his ideas on innateness, are profound, unsurpassed even, so far as classics go.

In fact, Locke says that no matter how deep we go into micro-structures, we will never discover how secondary qualities arise, he very explicit on this. I could give some quotes, I have my Essay heavily annotated and highlighted, but alas, it is in paperback, and it would take too long, unless you specifically request it, I'll put it aside.

So in my interpretation Kant says that also the corpuscular microstructure (if there's such a thing for Kant - this is not clear in CPR) is also part of phenomenal world. We don't know if we ever reach the ultimate atomic structure of substances, and we don't even know if there is such a thing in the first place. Noumena for Kant is something totally outside all of this. (So I'm here following the metaphysical interpretation, I guess). Outside our representations, which include both primary and secondary qualities, there's nothing for us. For God, maybe. — Olento

Yes, I think that interpretation of Kant is correct, and his argument about this is very sound, our scientific knowledge is of phenomena.

As for us not knowing if we reach these ultimate structures in the phenomenal world, here we have to look at current physics, and I think we discover that we cannot reach this, because our theories on what is (phenomenally) ultimate, is not settled.

As I understand him, Kant, influenced by Allais' interpretation, says that things in themselves, are the grounds of appearance, but we don't know how this grounding relation works, it will remain incomprehensible for us. In this sense, things in themselves are a step removed from Locke's "substance", because for Kant, even primary qualities are phenomena, and Kant is right to say so.

We need to take into account how general relativity would modify Kant, because Kant was a Newtonian, and this is not pointed out enough. Sure, he gives very good arguments as to why space and time are the a priori conditions of our sensibilities, but it is no coincidence that he chose these specific notions, because Newton thought space and time were absolute. Kant doesn't mention Newton (or barely mentions him from what I can recall) because by that time, virtually everybody took Newton for granted.

Now we know that Newton is not exactly right. And this has to modify Kant to a limited extent.

In any case, the idea of "things in themselves" remains very valuable regardless of our current theory in physics, I think it is a necessary postulate them, to make sense of the world. So, in that respect, his emphasis on the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon is extraordinarily important.

Politeness is almost always a most excellent virtue, for there can be disagreement without animosity, which, in the best case, leads to mutual learning.

I think the image is somewhat more complex than what you ascribe to Locke. While one can say, in some sense, that he is a "realist", that is, yes, he does think there is an "objective world" out there, he only thinks that some of its properties come about due to sensations, caused by primary qualities, secondary qualities do not belong to "external object", and primary qualities do not render them intelligible.

But when we examine objects in more depth, and consider what "substance" these objects are made of, Locke says:

"So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called accidents. If any one should be asked, what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but the solid extended parts; and if he were demanded, what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian before mentioned who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on; to which his answer was- a great tortoise: but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied- something, he knew not what... [we] pretend to know, and talk of, is what... [we] ... have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it, and in the dark. "

There is just a pure Gold mine in Locke's discussion On Our Complex Ideas of Substances.

Apologies for the length of the quote, but brevity is not his strong suite, and cutting these sentences down is difficult, because they are so good.

I can see very clear connections with the noumenon here, only that this concept encompasses primary qualities to. So, it is a difference of degrees, not of kind.

Quite true, science investigates phenomena, not noumena (in a negative or positive sense). But this does not at all reduce the value of scientific theories, nor importantly, as you say, render them an less "real", which turns out to be a very problematic term.

But it is not thereby a more profound investigation of reality so much as a shift or turn with the goal of putting knowledge in order—simultaneously criticizing rationalists by rejecting most metaphysics (we cannot know anything except in reference to objects of experience) and defending knowledge against empiricist sceptics by establishing a solid foundation for science (we can know things objectively). — Jamal

Yes, I agree that it more than anything an emphasis on the shift in perspective, more so that a entirely new mode of investigation. Funnily enough, I am re-reading the CPR for the third time, and although it has many merits, I do have one problem with Kant:

I do not think the way he presents his thought, as being "Copernican" or so radically new, to be, neither as new as he presents, nor as radical as he claims it to be. One clearly sees very strong anticipations of the noumena in Locke's discussion on "substance".

Cudworth, virtually entirely unknown explains Kant's philosophy 100 years before Kant published the CPR, when he says (among many other quotes):

"The essences of light and colours (said Scaliger) are as dark to the understanding, as they themselves are open to the sight.” Nay, undoubtedly so long as we consider these things no otherwise than sense represents them, that is, as really existing in the objects without us, they are and must needs be eternally unintelligible. Now when all men naturally inquire what these things are, what is light, and what are colours, the meaning hereof is nothing else but this, that men would fain know or comprehend them by something of their own which is native and domestic, not foreign to them, some active exertion or anticipation of their own minds…"

And much else which is richer in ideas, but not in theory, to Kant.

Plotinus too, is also a massive anticipation, also very rich on his own. (End rant.)

Regardless, the emphasis on the form of the investigation is very useful and impressive, because we still are unable to get out of our heads, the "common sense" picture of the world, no matter how hard we try.

Noumena are interesting to explore conceptually, but science won't reveal them, even if must postulate something like them to make sense of the world.

It's been a while since I've seen this post, don't recall if I've posted before, but we all end up repeating ourselves many times, so, that is not an issue.

I would simply point out that, whatever notion one may have of a mind, it surely would not include one that crunches ALL (or an astronomical amount of) available data on a given topic and produces the most probable next word in a sentence. If our minds worked like that, we would probably need to sleep every minute or so.

We would need to attempt to give a rough outline of what one takes a mind to be, to see if such a term applies to any version of GPT.

Metaphysics as traditionally understood is essentially the question, what is the (fundamental) nature of the world. Of course, we have achieved considerable feats in our knowledge of the world since Aristotle.

But we've also comes to realize that what we can know of the world, is substantially reduced from what we would like to know about it. So now, if we want to engage in metaphysics, it must be done through an epistemological lens.

So, the question shifts somewhat from what is the nature of the world to: "what is it that can we say, given the creatures we are, about the nature of the world."

Why not? That person is still here, or did they leave?

All demonstrable usage of the terms "thought" and "belief" consists entirely of correlations. All talk consists entirely of correlations. The attribution of meaning consists of precisely the same. What else could we sensibly call thought/belief if it doesn't somehow involve and/or consist of mental correlations? — creativesoul

It's a bit tricky. We can say that certain objects have a kind of consistent reliability to stimulate us in a particular way. But then we have to explain hallucinations, or mental phenomena that has no immediate external anchor to our current thoughts. And in this domain, correlation is obscure to establish.

As for what we can call thoughts? That's really hard. Plainly we have thoughts about things we do not encounter in experience - morals say, or events from which we are very far removed. Then there's also me willing my fingers to type these letters, as opposed to some other letters and much else besides a correlation between something "out there" and our minds.

And now I see that his is 6 years old, so, you may no longer believe exactly what you say here, or perhaps have modified your stance.

A Man of Shadows - Jeff Noon

Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant

Honorary membership will have to do. Our views are considered very silly in much contemporary science/philosophy. Oh well.

I'm unsure why - this seems to define miracle as rare. As i understand, we could get a miracle per moment; as long as it's something which requires the suspension of established natural law, it would just be a lot of miracles. Though, this does go to the origin of those laws - and a force which overcame them. I don't think I either know enough, or care enough, to go further but 'being common' doesn't seem a defeater, to me. Might be misunderstanding! — AmadeusD

By miracles I mean something which goes beyond whatever naturalism encapsulates, naturalism meaning, in my case, a thing of nature. Mind you, my definition of naturalism allows for novels and movies and drama and all that, so it is far from being a scientisitic designator. We don't know the limits of what nature encapsulates.

By supernatural, I would mean something that goes beyond what nature can do. It's a kind of substance dualism, which can't be defended intelligibly. So, if a miracle could happen, it couldn't be part of nature by definition (my definition), but since we don't know the limits of nature, we shouldn't invoke the miraculous. So if a mind is not part of the world, and since the world is part of nature, mind must be part of nature too, unless there is argument given as to why minds cannot be natural, which doesn't make any sense.

I do, though, presuppose that if mind-at-large is a thing (in mind of panpsychism, lets say) then there will be natural laws regulating its behaviour and so there's no miracle in it. If it is somehow totally inexplicable, then yeah, it would have to be an ingression to reality, rather than some discreet aspect of reality. — AmadeusD

Well that sounds like Kastrup's idea, except he doesn't believe in panpsychism, because he doesn't believe there is mind-independent matter. But if you are a panpsychist in general (like Strawson or Goff) then, sure, that's one way to explain the mental.

I am personally a "radical emergence" guy, minds arise from configurations of natural stuff, but we have no idea how.

We do what, perceive and think? Sure.

But if it's a miracle (meaning, minds are not part of world-stuff), then maybe it happens once ever, in the whole history of the universe.

But if it happens several billion times, as is the case with our species, it can't be a miracle and thus our minds are a property of the world.

I don't see an alternative between these two options.

Yeah, you've said something similar before I believe. I think the mind is part of the world, it isn't the same thing as an object, clearly, but it is a modification of world stuff.

If that's not true, then minds are literal miracles, and I don't think we need to go that far.

I don’t think it is the case dreams are the reception of stimuli, for one thing, and for another, reception of stimuli just is sensation anyway, which is only possible by the causality of external things.

But you probably mean the brain receiving stimuli from itself, which requires no immediate sensation. But then, does any dream contain that which was not at some former time a sensation, or at least a possible sensation? If so, then external objects are at least the mediate content of dreams, even if not their cause. — Mww

Yes, that's what I should have said.

Well, if you consider say, geometrical shapes as sensations, then by definition everything in a dream would be some aspect of a prior sensation.

I think that the most we can say about objects is that they are the stimulus for our ideas and conceptions, to awaken them in a manner of speaking or to put them to work, though they were there all along, dormant.

But then the combination of actual objects to possible objects, does not involve sensation, or if it does, it would be a quite minor part.

What does serious monism look like? By what description might I understand what it is? — Mww

I think Galen Strawson's conception of materialism, in his essay "Real Materialism", would be a very good approximation. You don't even have to accept it as materialism, you could call it "actual monism" or "ideal monism" - he does have an essay called Realistic Monism, which is not as good.

You don't even have to buy into his panpsychism (I don't.)

In short, everything that is, is X, wherein X is whatever designation you want to call the stuff of the world, which include our minds. And by everything, I mean everything: history, novels, ideas, flowers, cabbages, kings, atoms, art, grass, dreams, all sensations, etc. It's all a modification of X.

It that does not sound persuasive, then, we have the classical problems, how con two (or more) totally distinct things, which appear to have nothing in common, interact? No one has been able to answer this in a convincing manner that I can see.

I'm only trying to show how the term is problematic, and I find this puzzling given all this talk about "externalism", as if this idea is so clear. I don't think it is.

If forced to pick, I'd say external is what is not literally in my mind at any moment. But I have to tweak it more.

The ideas of other people could be said to be external to you, in so far as they don't express what they are thinking, otherwise we assume they are a person-like-me.

But then we may be stretching the term "external" a bit. It would be perhaps more accurate to say, these people's thoughts are hidden from me.

We only see behavior, from which we guess internal states. Reading a good novel, is, I think, the closest you could get into the mind of another person, though of course in a much more structured form than what actually happens in our heads all the time.

As for the notion of a single mind or consciousness, that's too much Kastrup like for my tastes. But there is an interesting aspect here, and it applies to everything: if you take the brain of a person and do certain experiments, we assume that this brain applies to all other brains on Earth, given we are essentially the same creature with superficial differences.

This happens with all creatures and plants too. So there's plenty to chew on.

I agree it hasn’t to do with properties of things, but it does seem quite easy just to say…the external is that by which sensations are possible.

Wanna get stickier….the external is the permanent in time, simply because the internal never is.

Helps to be a unrepentant dualist, though, right? If one isn’t, he would have a harder job with the issue, — Mww

Well, if you want to get super sticky, then in so far as your first sentence goes, sure, in SOME cases. What happens when we receive stimulus with no external object, such as dreams? Or cases in which, for no apparent reason, we suddenly have an intense flashback and literally forget where we are at this moment. We would need to account for cases of internal stimulation too.

Agree with your second statement, quite perceptive.

Dualism, shmualisms. Seeing is extremely different from hearing, yet we say they are both senses. Serious monism requires a lot of imagination, in my mind.

I think the distinction between inside and outside the skin is a useful and valid one. A basic principle of semiotics is the idea that life and experience is only possible once there is a separation between an 'inside' and an 'outside', most primordially realized by the cell membrane.

It's true that when we think about and analyze it we may become confused due to ambiguities of terms. — Janus

Of course, I wouldn't dream of saying no such distinction exists, because, as you say, the difference between inside and outside is massive and would not be possible absent a sentient, much less a thinking being.

I only want to stress that I think it makes more sense to think of it in terms of "internal internal" and "internal external", because this latter, as you also point out, is a representation (or a presentation, whatever word you prefer) and hence not AS external as is usually thought.

At least, I find this persuasive at the moment.

I see no reason to think that what is reliably and cross-sensorially perceived is not real in some sense. After all, that is generally what is meant by the word 'real'.

So, the colours and the heat are real phenomena that exist in the interaction of the body with fire and the light reflected off objects. You say the heat is not in the fire. but the fire can burn objects and even entirely consume them, even in the absence of anyone perceiving the fire.

Heat is defined by science as the agitation of molecules caused by friction or combustion, but of course heat defined as a felt phenomenon is only possible for a percipient. — Janus

Yes, the word "real", is thorny, often distracting. Everything is real is some sense, even Harry Potter, though he would belong in the books of J.K. Rowling.

Heat and colors are quite real, they just don't belong to the objects alone, as you point out. I said heat, but heat is relative to us, a paper or piece of plastic burning, feels not heat, it disintegrates, due to an interaction between fire and the relevant object.

That's a plausible way to explain how we arrive at such an internal/external distinction, just as having a dream and waking up to discover that its content was not realized, might also lead to that distinction.

But it's still a quite fuzzy distinction that, while it may suffice for everyday dealings, becomes more problematic as we think and analyze it with some depth.

Sure, you can say external objects are real, but to go on to argue,

that our perceptions of them are real on account of the real affects they, along with environmental conditions, light, sound, molecules of scent and taste, and the nature of our bodies themselves, have on our perceptions. — Janus

Raises a serious problem.

What about the objects' effects are we interacting with? As Descartes points out, the heat is not in the fire, and as almost everyone says, the orange and yellow colour is not in the fire either, and so on down the list of properties.

Something other than the heat we feel and orange we see must account for these things, and furthermore they must be different from the heat we feel or the orange we see. For if the effects of the objects were identical with our internal causes, we wouldn't be able to make the distinction between an object and an idea.

So, we are still left with the issue, what is external? I don't see an easy answer, outside of ordinary (and I hate this word) "folk" psychology.

For if one is unable to know anything about the external world, then one can not make any claims about it at all – even claiming that knowledge about it is impossible, because that too is knowing something about the external world – namely, that it is unknowable.

In fact, wouldn’t you need to bypass your own perceptions and go outside your own mind in order to make such a claim? After all, according to the argument, your own perceptions and mind are unable to determine anything about the external world. Given that argument, you would need to employ some means – other than your own perceptions and mind – to be able to verify whether or not an external world can be accessed by your internal perceptions and mind.

Because isn’t it possible that our perceptions are a dependable means of obtaining knowledge of the external world?

If we are to know anything, then don’t we need to (somehow) have access to that object of knowledge? And to have access, don’t we need a means by which we access it?...

....

.... Aren’t sensory perceptions the means by which we gain access to – and knowledge about – the external world? Skeptics misrepresent their critics as identifying perception with the world itself. Rather, aren’t skeptics the ones conflating process with result; confusing the road with the destination; and identifying addition, subtraction, multiplying and dividing with the solutions of algebraic problems?

And one final observation: It seems to me that the skeptic is rigging the game from the start – taking away the means by which we can have knowledge of the external world in order to prove it is impossible to know anything about it. Which actually reveals another logical issue – that of assuming what is to be proven and then “proving” it (the fallacy of begging the question):

The skeptic assumes and asserts that we do not have the means by which we can have knowledge of the external world and, therefore, we can not have knowledge of the external world... — Thales

The issue is in the definition the "external world", as you point out. External is usually taken to mean, something outside our minds. So how it that we can go outside our minds (or perceptions that arise in persons with minds) to a completely external world?

In theory I suppose, it would be nice to be able to go outside one's own body to compare if our perceptions are getting something right or wrong about the world as we perceive it. But of course, this is impossible, for a view outside ourselves - and hence outside a framework of understanding - there would be nothing at all to experience.

The issue of correctness or incorrectness of our perceptions is not relevant about the external world, they are relevant in relation to our conceptions of our perceptions about the mind-dependent world: is that flower I am seeing white or grey? Is that the sound of a train or a concert?, etc.

A big issue, to my mind, is what exactly is meant by external here? People often speaking about external and internal, as if that distinction is very clear, I don't think it is. It would be replied that this sofa I am seeing is external to me, that is, it is not in my mind, so it is external in that sense.

But is that a substantial point? For the sofa I was seeing mere seconds ago tells me about how it looks to me, how it feels to me and how I conceive of and understand objects, always in relation to the being in question, in this case, a human being. So by this metric, the sofa I am seeing is not external to me, it is a representation, and representations are internal.

Perhaps a better distinction would be internal internal/ internal external, the former being ideas in my head absent an immediate object, and the latter would be objects as they appear to my senses and how my mind interprets them.

All this leaves aside the issue of the sciences, specifically physics, which is the star of the sciences, there we have good reason to believe that we are studying aspects of the mind-independent world, which is different from an "external world", because, at the end of the day, physics has to make sense to us in some manner, or it wouldn't matter at all, nothing would register.

It is in this area, in which we may come closest to something like the external world, but still with some caveats, which in fact make the science possible at all. Aspects of cosmology and classical physics seem to indicate some abstract properties of the mind independent world, which is fascinating, but structural, as in epistemic structural realism, which may be the best we can do. But, I could be wrong.

I think the knowledge you are discussing as veridical in hopes of showing that true perceptions tell us something about the external world, is more of an issue of accurateness of our perceptions given what many people report experiencing: if everybody sees the sky as blue, but I see it as yellow, then I may have some liver problems, or problems with my eye. But it doesn't reach the external world defined as, something outside our minds.

I believe I have mentioned this before, but if you can find yourself a copy of Tallis' The Knowing Animal, I think you will very much enjoy it.

I think it is his best work, by far, and I have read quite a bit of him.

Deals with this thread topic quite well, a very interesting account of the given in experience, even richer than Lewis original one back in the day. Of course, Tallis doesn't call it that.

Nevertheless, worth keeping an eye out for that one.

I think we approximate such as state if we attempt to remember a bit what existence was like prior to birth, or the instance before our first conscious experience.

But while awake and alive, it is somewhat more difficult to do so, assuming dreamless sleep is in now way similar to nothingness, which sounds wrong to me.

But then I could be wrong in this latter intuition, don't think I'm wrong about my former one. But, we cannot be certain.

Sure, which is why have literature and art. And a good deal of philosophy. Good thing too, otherwise, a world with only science (as narrowly construed) would be quite boring and dry, akin to reading calculations made by a computer.

The only philosopher I can think of who thinks science is the only game in town when it comes to human understanding, is Alex Rosenberg, as presented in his book The Atheists' Guide to Reality.

It's not only absurd and insulting, rather, it is not even wrong. Thankfully, few people are this insane.

Welcome and enjoy your time here. There are plenty of important Australian philosophers around.

As to your question and Sartre's claim, that "existence precedes essence", I believe this is as a factual claim, false. If it is intended to elaborate some kind of existentialist viewpoint, then that claim has to be defended under such a context.

Without extra content, it's not true. Without a nature (essence), existence is meaningless, one might as well be a rock.

Within our rich biological capacities, existence (experience) plays a fundamental role in our development as human beings.

At least, that's how it seems to me.

:victory:

@180 Proof

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Redemption-Philipp-Mainl%C3%A4nder/dp/0645498076/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Q1S6IHXRFSEX&keywords=the+philosophy+of+redemption&qid=1705765531&s=books&sprefix=the+philosophy+of+redepmption%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C184&sr=1-1

Not at all.

Happens to all of us. :smile: