Perhaps mess and muddle is an inescapable part of human life? And then, the attempt to escape also becomes an inescapable part of human life. Perhaps the best thing to do is to embrace mess and muddle - but then, what would become of philosophy? — Ludwig V
Well, the first half of that is a bit unorthodox. — Ludwig V
Perhaps so. However, I've always thought that Kant essentially accepts Berkeley, especially his argument that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities doesn't hold up, so that time and space are mind-dependent, as well as colour, etc. Including matter in that argument makes sense. Once you have accepted the distinction between reality and appearance, ideas and things, phenomena and noumena, that conclusion is more or less inevitable. The only way out is to reject, or at least recast, the distinction. — Ludwig V
I'm afraid I'm not quite on board with this. It makes sense on its own terms. I thought matter was posited to account for things persisting through change, and that in any case, for Aristotle, if not others, the object of perception of things is their form (or maybe perceptible form?). But I don't recognize Berkeley here.Notice, that for Berkeley "matter" is presented as a concept which would commonly be used to account for the supposed independent existence of the things (noumena). However, he shows that "matter" is really an unnecessary supposition, it is not actually required to be assumed as part of the independent thing to understand its independent existence. This implies that "matter" is actually a concept use to account for the sense appearance of things (phenomena). — Metaphysician Undercover
Not sure who "he" is here. But Berkeley certainly dispenses with matter altogether. It has no place in his world. God supplies all that is needed to explain our sensations of things, and explains change. I'm not sure whether his concept of ideas matches the idea of forms, but it certainly seems possible.He shows that if we take "matter" out of the thing, we lose nothing from our conceptions of independent things. That is because our conceptions are formal (in the Aristotelian sense of form). Nevertheless, regardless of what Berkeley shows, we find that "matter" is indispensable to the understanding of our sensations of things. This is because we sense things as active, changing, and Aristotle introduced "matter" as the means for understanding the potential for change. — Metaphysician Undercover
I suppose he would have to accept that the idea of matter can exist in a mind. But I don't think Berkeley's idea of ideas includes the potential for change. They are posited as inert and inactive, which Berkeley things rules out any causal relations between them - causal changes as we experience them are created and maintained by God. So far as I can see, he recognizes only one possibility for change - minds.In each case, "matter" maintains its Aristotelian base as the potential for change, and the unintelligible aspect of reality. Berkeley, like Kant (with space and time) positions matter as something a priori, created within the human body or mind, as a necessary condition for sense perception, but not necessary for the independent existence of things. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not sure about this at all. I agree that, for Hume, relations between ideas are created (by association) in our minds. I found him curiously silent on Berkeley's issue. I have the impression that the existence of external, mind-independent objects is not explicitly ruled out. My speculation is the Hume did not want to get caught up in Berkeley.Hume turns this around and leaves matter as an a posteriori concept created by the mind in order to understand the independent existence of things which are sensed, rather than as necessary for the sense appearance of things. — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, "reject" is perhaps too strong and too simple. How could I not recognize the difference between appearance and reality? Whether it is consistent with how I experience things is one issue.Why reject it (sc. the distinction between phenomena and noumena) though, when it seems to be completely consistent with how I experience things? — Metaphysician Undercover
...second he [Berkley] recognizes that some of our ideas have a cause that is not me. — Ludwig V
26. CAUSE OF IDEAS.--We perceive a continual succession of ideas, some are anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore some cause of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of ideas, is clear from the preceding section. It must therefore be a substance; but it has been shown that there is no corporeal or material substance: it remains therefore that the CAUSE OF IDEAS is an incorporeal active substance or Spirit.
28. I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active. Thus much is certain and grounded on experience; but when we think of unthinking agents or of exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse ourselves with words.
29. IDEAS OF SENSATION DIFFER FROM THOSE OF REFLECTION OR MEMORY.--But, whatever power I may have over MY OWN thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is THEREFORE SOME OTHER WILL OR SPIRIT that PRODUCES THEM.
33. OF REAL THINGS AND IDEAS OR CHIMERAS.--The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called REAL THINGS; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed IDEAS, or IMAGES OF THINGS, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless IDEAS, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more (1)STRONG, (2)ORDERLY, and (3)COHERENT than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also (4)LESS DEPENDENT ON THE SPIRIT [Note: Vide sect. xxix.--Note.], or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are IDEAS, and certainly no IDEA, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it.
The passage in bold in section 28 above is more or less all he has to say about how a mind does what it does.27. NO IDEA OF SPIRIT.--A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being--as it perceives ideas it is called the UNDERSTANDING, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them it is called the WILL. Hence there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert (vide sect. 25), they cannot represent unto us, by way of image or LIKENESS, that which acts. A little attention will make it plain to any one, that to have an idea which shall be like that active principle of motion and change of ideas is absolutely impossible. Such is the nature of SPIRIT, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, BUT ONLY BY THE EFFECTS WHICH IT PRODUCETH. If any man shall doubt of the truth of what is here delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can frame the idea of any power or active being, and whether he has ideas of two principal powers, marked by the names WILL and UNDERSTANDING, distinct from each other as well as from a third idea of Substance or Being in general, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the subject of the aforesaid powers--which is signified by the name SOUL or SPIRIT. This is what some hold; but, so far as I can see, the words WILL [Note: "Understanding, mind."--Edit 1710.], SOUL, SPIRIT, do not stand for different ideas, or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something which is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be like unto, or represented by, any idea whatsoever. Though it must be owned at the same time that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind: such as willing, loving, hating--inasmuch as we know or understand the meaning of these words.
I take it that you mean by "energetic" the concept of energy that is defined by physics? Which, by definition, studies what is physical?
Perhaps St. Augustine's remark about time applies to matter, as well. — Ludwig V
For my money, it is the neglect of the elementary point that both "substantial" and "real" do not have a determinate sense outside the context of their use. — Ludwig V
I'm afraid I'm not quite on board with this. It makes sense on its own terms. I thought matter was posited to account for things persisting through change, and that in any case, for Aristotle, if not others, the object of perception of things is their form (or maybe perceptible form?). But I don't recognize Berkeley here.
For Berkeley, the mind-independent existence of anything is ruled out by "esse" is "percipi". That principle is why he rules out matter as not merely unnecessary but impossible. — Ludwig V
Not sure who "he" is here. But Berkeley certainly dispenses with matter altogether. It has no place in his world. God supplies all that is needed to explain our sensations of things, and explains change. I'm not sure whether his concept of ideas matches the idea of forms, but it certainly seems possible. — Ludwig V
I'm not sure about this at all. I agree that, for Hume, relations between ideas are created (by association) in our minds. I found him curiously silent on Berkeley's issue. I have the impression that the existence of external, mind-independent objects is not explicitly ruled out. My speculation is the Hume did not want to get caught up in Berkeley. — Ludwig V
Well, "reject" is perhaps too strong and too simple. How could I not recognize the difference between appearance and reality? Whether it is consistent with how I experience things is one issue.
But our senses tell us about the world we live in, so long as we are suitably critical of what they seem to be telling us. Somehow they have become a VR headset which is an obstacle to our knowing that the world is "really" like and probably feeding us nothing but lies. It's a fantasy and the granddaddy of conspiracy theories. (OK, that's a caricature. It's only meant to show the direction of travel.) — Ludwig V
I'm wondering how Berkeley might distinguish between an idea having a cause "that is not me" and an idea having a cause that is me, but of a sort of causality that Berkley doesn't understand. — wonderer1
I agree with you. However, @Fooloso4's points about the way she makes her point are also important. The issue crops up all the time in reading texts from the past - and the present. Her ideas about marriage, family, maturity were pretty much conventional, though not uncontested, at the time and still exist. We need to be able to acknowledge both sides of this, though I haven't worked out how to do so properly.I think Midgley makes a profound point. — ENOAH
Yes, quite so.Her point, I take it, to be that we do not [contra Descartes] have to infer the existence of the same consciousness in others. She was beyond Descartes, the subject, "I", and phenomenal perception. — ENOAH
Why not indeed? But let us not be hypnotized by a one bonding, but recognize the many different bonds there are in human lives - and how they arise in ways that we interact with, as opposed to merely observe, each other - and how we distinguish between people and non-people at the same time.Why not bonding as a source for the truth that we are not utterly isolated in our consciousness? — ENOAH
.. so truth within a restricted framework is not really truth?Or is philosophy not about truth, but about it within a restricted framework? — ENOAH
On Certainty 225.225. What I hold fast to is not one proposition but a nest of propositions.
I was expounding, not evaluating, so I'm able to agree with your critique in many ways, though I'm not particularly wedded to Aristotelianism.I find this to be a bit scrambled but I'll see what I can do to sort it out with my understanding of Berkeley. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. But, for me, the unintelligibility of matter is not a conclusion, but a problem. If you were to present this conclusion to Berkeley, he would conclude that matter didn't exist, and I would not be able to explain why he is wrong.As for Aristotle's concept of matter, it is primarily defined in his physics, as you say, as what persists through change. However, since the form of the thing is what actually changes, then the matter is said to provide the potential for change. That's how matter escapes the law of excluded middle, as potential, what neither is nor is not. And this is why it is the aspect of the world which is unintelligible to us. So the supposed underlying aspect of a thing which persists through change, matter, is completely unintelligible to us. — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree. I don't think there is a coherent idea of immaterial minds.Berkeley allows that separate people have separate minds, and God's mind is separate from human minds. But I do not think that he adequately addresses the issue of what provides for the separation between one mind and another. So we need a concept like "matter" to provide for the separation between minds. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm sure you know about the controversy about Hume's atheism. I don't think there is a determinate answer about what he "really" believed. But the Enquiry is perfectly clear. He rejects rational arguments for God's existence and Christianity, but believes in them on faith, which he acknowledges is a miracle.I believe the principal difference between Hume and Berkeley is that Hume didn't believe in God. — Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't express myself clearly. There are ordinary uses of "appear" and "real" that are perfectly in order. The stick in water appears to be bent, but isn't "really". The sun disappears behind the moon, but still exists. But when we posit a world of "appearances" (or "experiences") that exist independently of the entities that they are appearances of, we are seriously mistaken.How can you possibly distinguish between appearance and reality? Once you accept that there is such a distinction to be made, you plunge yourself into a quagmire because you need to provide principles by which you would distinguish between the two. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I know that understanding of causation exists - I've seen it one of Hacker's books - I forget which. I am increasingly sympathetic, but have not read enough about it to be sure what I think of it. Your conclusion from that experience that an interaction that does not involve energy is inconceivable seems a bit quick to me. I have heard of the four fundamental forces, but I've forgotten what they are, I'm afraid.We experience our own efforts all the time. We know energy from the inside, so to speak, and the idea of an interaction that does not involve energy, energy exchange, is inconceivable. So, I start from there, physics is merely an elaboration and formalization of that understanding. Speaking of basics, have you never heard of the four fundamental forces? — Janus
I'm glad we are in agreement about this. But philosophers seem to have a hard time with it, as, for example, in the argument about first causes vs infinite causes. Rorty described it as Truth vs truth.I passed this over before, and I should have made the point that this is a truism that applies to all terms whatsoever. There are no terms that have determinate senses outside the contexts of their use, which makes your point seem somewhat moot. — Janus
The point now, is that for Aristotle, "to subsist", therefore to be substance, is to have form. And, form does not require matter, so this validates the substantial existence of immaterial forms, i.e. the subsistence of immaterial forms. — Metaphysician Undercover
Are you suggesting another framework?
There's an interesting discussion to be had about translation between languages/cultures — Ludwig V
"Framework", just like "language-game" and even "Language" and "language" and "dialect" are most at home in an approach that looks for structures. And then we rightly want to expand our view and so we want to develop an overall structure (or Structure). But all these concepts are what I think of as jelly-fish concepts - almost infinitely plastic. So I'm quite content to set up a structure in a particular context for a particular purpose, without aspiring to any totalizing Structure. That annoys almost everyone, but it works for me.If, on the other hand, I were suggesting another framework, I would respectfully say your discussion above is not what I would consider another framework. Rather, it too, is within this framework. Or, from your position, probably a framework within. — ENOAH
OK. So now we can add "world" to the list of jelly-fish concepts. To adopt your spatial metaphor, our problem is that Language endlessly points beyond itself, while at the same time preventing us from ever quite getting there. Perhaps then I should have said "seems to point beyond itself". My preferred tactic is to turn the problem upside-down, by reflecting that language was developed from whatever existed before it and is a product of whatever existed before it. It must therefore be useful within those worlds. It is language that needs to take its place in the world, not the other way about. What may be even more important is that we are all born without language and need to develop a great deal of understanding of the world in order to be able to learn it. (I began to work this out in another thread - "on the matter of epistemology and ontology" - I don't know if you were involved in that.)The latter being before/beyond/outside of Language, which I would now identify as the constructed world, the world within a framework of becoming, to a world of organic presence, a world of (human) being. — ENOAH
Yes and no. For the ancient Romans "familiaris" meant "of a house, of a household, belonging to a family, household, domestic, private". On a generous interpretation of "family", I'll buy this. One reason for doing so is that, whatever our domestic arrangements, we are all born and brought up and, for me, the people involved in that are my family, and so everyone has a family of some sort. It does imply that the consciousness of creatures that don't grow up in that way becomes moot - even if they are sentient. In ethics, that might become problematic.That's why the bonding Midgley referenced is uniquely significant--family, mates, offspring--that's where you find consciousness, and you find that we are one. — ENOAH
You may think me lazy, but here are some extracts from the Treatise that should (I hope) explain what you're asking about. — Ludwig V
Yes. But, for me, the unintelligibility of matter is not a conclusion, but a problem. If you were to present this conclusion to Berkeley, he would conclude that matter didn't exist, and I would not be able to explain why he is wrong. — Ludwig V
I'm sure you know about the controversy about Hume's atheism. I don't think there is a determinate answer about what he "really" believed. But the Enquiry is perfectly clear. He rejects rational arguments for God's existence and Christianity, but believes in them on faith, which he acknowledges is a miracle. — Ludwig V
I didn't express myself clearly. There are ordinary uses of "appear" and "real" that are perfectly in order. The stick in water appears to be bent, but isn't "really". — Ludwig V
But when we posit a world of "appearances" (or "experiences") that exist independently of the entities that they are appearances of, we are seriously mistaken. — Ludwig V
It seems to me that neuroscience (and psychology) have changed the game. It has been pretty obvious for a long time (over a century, I would say) that this would happen. But now we are facing the opening up of the reality and peering anxiously into the dark. I say that because there is a widespread tendency to speak as if we know it all already or to speculate wildly on what might be revealed. Both very human traits, but still not helpful.I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on. — wonderer1
It seems to me that neuroscience (and psychology) have changed the game. It has been pretty obvious for a long time (over a century, I would say) that this would happen. But now we are facing the opening up of the reality and peering anxiously into the dark. I say that because there is a widespread tendency to speak as if we know it all already or to speculate wildly on what might be revealed. Both very human traits, but still not helpful. — Ludwig V
It does imply that the consciousness of creatures that don't grow up in that way becomes moot - even if they are sentient. In ethics, that might become problematic. — Ludwig V
I agree with you. However, Fooloso4's points about the way she makes her point are also important. The issue crops up all the time in reading texts from the past - and the present. Her ideas about marriage, family, maturity were pretty much conventional, though not uncontested, at the time and still exist. We need to be able to acknowledge both sides of this, though I haven't worked out how to do so properly. — Ludwig V
Cutting out the dithering and getting on with it has much to be said for it. I'm quite good and patience and circumspection, I suppose, but I'm absolutely lousy at getting on with it.I admire your patient circumspection. I admit I am a bit prone to jump to conclusions. What I may or may not be able to conceive is not necessarily an adequate guide to what is conceivable or inconceivable tout court. How do we measure conceivability? — Janus
Yes, that's exactly how Berkeley presents his argument - officially - and why he thinks he can maintain that he doesn't deny the existence of anything that exists. (Notice how ambiguous that is - he doesn't deny the existence of anything that exists, but then he doesn't think that matter exists.)"Matter" is an Aristotelian concept, and the conceptual structure is arranged so that the form of a thing is what has existence. Matter, as the potential of a thing, simply does not exist, and that's why it's so easy for Berkeley to argue this, and why it seems to make logical sense, what he argues, even though intuitively we would expect otherwise. — Metaphysician Undercover
I remember when philosophers managed quite well without neuroscience, even though it was clearly beginning. It wasn't really taken on board until this century, I would say.I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on. — wonderer1
I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on. — wonderer1
I find it interesting to find out about the insights of philosophers with regard to thinking, when those philosophers didn't have the advantage of modern neuroscience in making sense of what is going on.
— wonderer1
Don’t you think that is just a tad ‘scientistic’? — Wayfarer
Have you ever read anything about the well-known book The Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Bennett and Hacker? — Wayfarer
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