I don't think you understood Schopenhauer. Go back and get the vibe of it. Then come back and examine N. — Tate
Schopenhauer was a hard determinist, so there's no denying the Will in that sense. — Tate
This is why I believe that a thoroughly scientifically-aware form of idealism is the philosophy of the future. Materialism in its classical sense - the idea that the Universe consists of inanimate lumps of matter and undirected energy which somehow give rise to life - will be consigned to history. — Wayfarer
Are you saying that Deleuze did not understand Schopenhauer? — Joshs
Schopenhauer was a hard determinist, so there's no denying the Will in that sense.
— Tate
What assumptions must be made about the nature of the will in order to argue that it must be denied in a Buddhist-like pose of nothingness? — Joshs
and does hard determinism not presuppose metaphysical assumptions about the nature of the real? — Joshs
The way I see it, the fact that science, which assumes materialism, has itself proved that the world as we experience it is a mental construction, does seem to deal quite a blow to materialism. — Hello Human
You ignore my line of argument that idealism (as you present it) doesn't oppose materialism, then you respond to Banno making much the same point with a hand-waiving "too technical". It's not 'too technical' at all. — Isaac
So let's take an example. Is there a teapot in orbit around Jupiter (an example from Russell)? We cannot be certain if there is or is not such a teapot. It seems unlikely, but we have not yet inspected every item in orbit around Jupiter. — Banno
Mind is somehow intrinsic to reality. — Banno
An idealist will claim that there cannot be unknown truths. — Banno
So it is that ordering and categorising which creates the life-world which is the world in which we dwell, which is synthesised by the observing mind, comprising sensory data combined with the structures of conceptual understanding (and much else besides, language, culture, and so on). — Wayfarer
I think I understand the intuitive objection to that, which is the strong sense we have of the distinction between what is 'inside' and what is 'external' to us, and that what is external is real, while what is internal is 'only' subjective. — Wayfarer
↪Wayfarer What is it in the account that you gave that you take to be incompatible with realism? — Banno
What seems odd to me is that I entirely agree with what you have said above, and yet I would, casually, count myself as a realist. — Banno
Love it or hate it, phenomena like this [i.e. organic molecules] exhibit the heart of the power of the Darwinian idea. An impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless little scrap of molecular machinery is the ultimate basis of all the agency, and hence meaning, and hence consciousness, in the universe. — Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
An idealist might just as easily say that it's a meaningless statement, a trifling hypothetical that's not worth debating. — Wayfarer
Mind is somehow intrinsic to reality.
— Banno
This is true, — Wayfarer
An idealist will claim that there cannot be unknown truths.
— Banno
That's a novel line of argument, I've never encountered that before. — Wayfarer
Before about the first world war, idealism in various forms was the dominant school of philosophy. — Wayfarer
I've argued for several years that the mooted distinction between an internal and an external world is misguided. — Banno
I don't think a conspiracy of anti-idealist sentiment will cut it. — Banno
I don't think idealism is opposed to realism. I think it's opposed to the notion of the 'mind-independent reality of the objects of the physical sciences.' Materialism is just the belief that the objects of the physical sciences have an intrinsic or inherent reality, independent of your or my or anyone else's observation of them, and the corollary that the mind is the product or output of those essentially unconcious and undirected material entities, as expressed by Daniel Dennett thus: — Wayfarer
And the reason I think it's fundamental is because it is the very condition of individual existence - even of the existence of the very simplest lifeforms. The very most basic thing that any life form has, is a sense of itself in the environment - the ability to avoid harm, seek nourishment, find conditions suitable for growth and so on. — Wayfarer
It's not a conspiracy so much as a cultural artefact... — Wayfarer
The point is the characterisation that a realist will say there are things that are true yet not known, while an idealist will deny this. — Banno
But mind is part of the world. — Banno
Could you find a reference in support of that? I think that signifies a basic misunderstanding on your part although I'm willing to be corrected. (I think that you are mistaking idealism for solipsism in saying that.) — Wayfarer
His theory is that the world as such has no features or objects as such, but that these are all projected onto it by the mind as a consequence of evolutionary development. All kinds of sentient beings see Gestalts, which are functional wholes, but there are no gestalts anywhere outside of perception: — Wayfarer
Draws a wide net. And too much symbolic code. Pass on that.Fitch’s Paradox of Knowability — Banno
Draws a wide net. And too much symbolic code. Pass on that. — Wayfarer
I think that your concern is that idealism rejects the possibility of unknown actual objects — Wayfarer
Well, no, of course not, since seeing is done with a mind.We can't see what would, or would not, exist, outside our minds. — Wayfarer
But at the same time, I don’t think materialism as you defined it will ever be consigned to history. We can’t perceive the world without or mental processes getting in the way, so we can’t ever truly know what the universe is made of. Best we can do is use sensory data, which is an imperfect source of knowledge, but still the best source of knowledge about the universe. So I think materialism could instead be viewed as the best explanation for the different patterns in the human experience. Not a description of the world, but an explanation based off our experience of it. — Hello Human
It's Stove's Gem, again, this time with a twist of lemon. — Banno
You should take the time to read Jim Franklin's criticism of Stove's Gem. — Wayfarer
The view I have only sounds trite because of the necessity of having to explain it in simple terms. — Wayfarer
I suspect I introduced it to you. — Banno
It is obvious that we can posit a possible world without a mind. — Banno
It would be misguided to deny before the fact that science has much to say about consciousness. — Banno
And he acknowledges that there is a genuine philosophical issue at the bottom of it, which I think he subtly suggest that Stove doesn't see. — Wayfarer
Of course you can imagine a world with no mind in it, but that still relies on a perspective. It's the conceit of naturalism to think otherwise. — Wayfarer
I am beginning to believe that, as David Stove wrote, people become Idealists because they cannot abide the view that the world is an alien place, that as the poet wrote "I am alone and afraid in a world I never made" and not being able to adopt religion which makes the world a much more congenial place, adopt Idealism which allows for them to make the world a part of themselves. — Gassendi
If there is to be a science of consciousness it has to take into account the first-person nature of the subject — Wayfarer
But what answer do we get when we ask what that "first-person nature of the subject" is? — Banno
which is exactly what phenomenology set out to do. — Wayfarer
may have been along the same lines, since the obvious source for continuity is a shared world.how it is (under idealism) that the world appears consistent day to day? — Tom Storm
Here's I think a hint at an answer to a presumption found in and , the OP, and many others, who talk of an external world as if this were obvious and unproblematic. But as you point out, all that interpreting takes place in the very same world that is described by physics. The difference is not internal and external worlds, but something closer to internal and external accounts of the very same thing. Roughly, neuroscientific accounts and intentional accounts are different ways of saying the same thing. We've discussed this elsewhere....it remains that there is a world to interpret and that, most importantly, the activity of interpreting is one going on within that world. — Isaac
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