Do you doubt that what appears real to us, what can appear real to us, is not (or at least not necessarily or not the whole of) what is real per se? — Janus
Yes! — Moliere
I'm not sure I agree that life is fundamentally a mystery. . . . mostly I'd prefer to say "absurd", but that's pretty close in functional terms, too. — Moliere
So just to be clear you think that what appears real to us is (necessarily the whole of) what is real per se? — Janus
Yes, the idea that life is absurd, at least as Camus framed it, is that it cannot answer the questions most important to us, and I think in that sense it follows that life is a mystery. — Janus
Heh. That's not a thought I want to dissolve. I'm admitting it's the weak point in my thinking! :) -- it's something I see as a serious problem if I were to take my posited categories as the real. I'm making up another set of categories to offer to solve one set of problems, but admitting that these are provisional [EDIT:and] are for a particular line of thinking rather than universal. — Moliere
I'm getting stuck on the parenthetical comment since you're wanting clarity -- can you put the question without parentheses? — Moliere
Sounds about right to me. "Mystery" invokes more than I like, so I like to say "absurd", but I admit functional equivalence. — Moliere
Do you think what is real to us is the whole of what is real? — Janus
Invokes or evokes? I'm guessing you think counting life as a mystery, as opposed to merely thinking it absurd, opens the door to mysticism and/or religion, and for that reason you don't favour the framing? — Janus
Put like that -- I believe it to be the case, but I do not know it to be the case. And I suspect the whole is not knowable, so knowledge cannot settle whether there is more to the real than what is real to us.
So what does? That's something I still ask and wonder about. — Moliere
Saying the whole is not knowable seems to imply that there is that which is unknowable. If there were that which is unknowable, would it follow that it is real, or would you say the word "real" here would be misapplied? — Janus
I take it that when you you say "knowable" you mean 'discursively knowable' and then you go on to wonder if there could be another way to "settle it". Would settling it, for you, imply some kind of non-discursive knowing or just arriving at a feeling of its being settled? — Janus
That's a great phrase which highlights why I didn't feel comfortable with the original distinction between Semantic/Phenomenological direct realism. — Moliere
I think I'd have to remain agnostic there. I can't know if it's misapplied because it's not known. And I'm not sure how I get to that, now that I think on it -- I was clarifying and answering, not arguing. — Moliere
In a way it would have to be a feeling that it's settled, but I'm not sure if that would be discursive or non-discursive. Gets back to the first question -- "the whole" is what I'm thinking, but I'm not sure how to get there since it wasn't in the categories posited so far. — Moliere
There is debate among modern interpreters over whether Kant is an indirect realist — Jamal
He explicitly states that we perceive the external world "immediately," and what he calls representations constitute the perception and determination of objects, rather than standing in for them as images or constructions. We have awareness of objects not through anything like an inference from or construction of an internal image, but through an act of synthesis that puts the objects directly before us. — Jamal
And yes, he does use "realism" to refer to claims that we can know things in themselves — Jamal
For Kant, the noumenal realm is not reality, since it is merely a product of reason. Rather, reality is that which we know about through experience and science. The clue to this is that reality for Kant is one of the categories of the understanding, thus it can only apply to phenomena. — Jamal
Perhaps you can find those that call themselves 'direct realists' that do this, but to me this is the wrong way to go and misses what's good in 'my' take on direct realism. — plaque flag
Perhaps you can find those that call themselves 'direct realists' that do this, but to me this is the wrong way to go and misses what's good in 'my' take on direct realism.
— plaque flag
What's your take on Direct Realism ? — RussellA
Here's Hegel.
For if knowledge is the instrument by which to get possession of absolute Reality, the suggestion immediately occurs that the application of an instrument to anything does not leave it as it is for itself, but rather entails in the process, and has in view, a moulding and alteration of it.
Or, again, if knowledge is not an instrument which we actively employ, but a kind of passive medium through which the light of the truth reaches us, then here, too, we do not receive it as it is in itself, but as it is through and in this medium. — plaque flag
Not sure exactly what you mean. In case it helps, for me the lifeworld has birds and blunders that we can talk about. Such articulated entities are just there for us. A (mistaken or less advisable) deworlding approach plucks all the leaves away to find the real artichoke. We acted as though we had tried to find the real artichoke by stripping it of its leaves. — plaque flag
Whether knowledge is an instrument or passive medium to bridge the gap, it alters what passes from a mind-independent world to our conscious mind, meaning that our perceptions are indirect.. — RussellA
The relation of perception to the experience is one of identity. It is like the pain and the experience of pain. The experience of pain does not have pain as an object because the experience of pain is identical with the pain. Similarly, if the experience of perceiving is an object of perceiving, then it becomes identical with the perceiving. Just as the pain is identical with the experience of pain, so the visual experience is identical with the experience of seeing. — RussellA
What's your take on Direct Realism ? — RussellA
This assumption of the instrument/medium is what's being mocked as a fear of truth that confuses itself for a fear of error.
With suchlike useless ideas and expressions about knowledge, as an instrument to take hold of the Absolute, or as a medium through which we have a glimpse of truth, and so on ..., we need not concern ourselves. — plaque flag
But what he presents is no discovery. — plaque flag
We talk about the world (directly) in our language according to our rational and semantic norms...A philosopher (in that role) can't deny it. He'd be talking about our world or just babbling. — plaque flag
Considering that we only get our knowledge about the external world through our senses, it seems very cavalier for Hegel to write that we need not concern ourselves about the role our senses play in understanding the external world. — RussellA
I agree. As an Indirect Realist I agree with Searle that the experience of pain does not have pain as an object because the experience of pain is identical with the pain.
Unfortunately, many who argue against Indirect Realism don't accept this. They believe that Indirect Realism requires that there must be something in the brain that is interpreting incoming data, something they often call a homunculus. — RussellA
I agree that we rationally and directly talk about the world. — RussellA
The question is, where is this "world". — RussellA
What else distinguishes the Direct Realist from the Indirect Realist ? — RussellA
The 'I' that sees the tree exists within the space of reasons. — plaque flag
It's all around us. It's the world. It's the one philosophers talk about and make claims about.......................We have to be talking rationally in a shared language about a shared world. — plaque flag
What really matters are linguistic norms. — plaque flag
But words and sentences are something else. The fact that the same sentence can be expressed by multiple utterances (a text engraved in stone vs a professor's quotation,) shows this. — frank
What really matters are linguistic norms. — plaque flag
That doesn't seem accurate. — Michael
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