I wonder, do I have to be any kind of 'ist', though? — John

No, I don't think so. It's just that if you agree that anytime we respond and interact with the world, ideas are attached to what we respond to, then it seems the next step might be that what we call the world is in a sense a complex of ideas.

the next step might be that what we call the world is in a sense a complex of ideas — Mongrel

By this however you could only conclude that the part of the world with which we can interact is a complex of ideas, but not necessarily that the entire world, including the aspects of it with which we have no connection in any way, is a complex of ideas.

You agree right?

What is your interpretation of a representative theory of mind? — hunterkf5732

I don't quite understand the question, hunter.

Rephrased: What is the definition of a "representative theory of mind''?

By this however you could only conclude that the part of the world with which we can interact is a complex of ideas, but not necessarily that the entire world, including aspects of it with which we have no connection in any way, is a complex of ideas.

You agree right? — hunterkf5732

Yep. Without some sort of non-idea, it wouldn't make much sense to talk about ideas.

I don't think material things are 'made of thought' whatever that might mean, they are by definition materially constituted. There is no-thing there, though, that is not in conceptual form; but that does not mean there is nothing, or even that there is a 'great unrepresented' there. — John

This is an issue which doesn't get enough attention.

Science has searched pretty hard for the material basis of being and what has it found? Matter is really energy. Energy is really a field. If you believe in inflation, that field is scalar and doesn't even start with direction or difference.

Form or structure we can get our head around. Materiality dissolves into bare action and then even ceases to have particular action according to science.

I think one way of thinking about "the world' is that it is a kind of collective representation. It seems to be a leap from there to say that the world is constituted by thought, though. Probably the closest to what I tend to think is that the world is constituted by spirit that manifests in the form of thought in interaction with material, or something like that. So, extending that thought, neither thought nor material, but spirit, is constitutive. The Holy Trinity?

Rephrased: What is the definition of a "representative theory of mind''? — hunterkf5732

It would be contrasted with behaviorism and probably non-reductive. The idea is that thought takes place in the domain of mental representations. Intention is a relation to those representations, which could have a sentence-like structure.

The idea is that thought takes place in the domain of mental representations — Mongrel

This seems like a very reasonable thing to say.What opposition is there to this claim?

Hmm. Cool.

This seems like a very reasonable thing to say.What opposition is there to this claim? — hunterkf5732

Behaviorism was once a popular opposing view, but Chomsky squashed it. It still lingers in various forms.

Probably the closest to what I tend to think is that the world is constituted by spirit that manifests in the form of thought in interaction with material, or something like that. So, extending that thought, neither thought nor material, but spirit, is constitutive. The Holy Trinity? — John

This where metaphysics gets exciting and bold. If "material" is our idea of that which is not idea, it's a sort of doomed thing-in-itself. So there is no material, just the concept-systems common-sense but apparently confused attempt to point outside of itself. But there is nothing outside the system, especially if we think of essences as inter-dependent. The essence of a cat involves the essence of a mouse and so on. So the distinction between thought and object is threatened, at least in our high-flying more-logical-than-practical speculations. So the concept-system rechristens itself "spirit," having transcended this subject-object a distinction, although this distinction is a necessary rung on the ladder or a moment that cannot be skipped (since being is dialectical). Then we have an unstable spirit falling forward into its cognitive dissonance and finally (if one can believe this far) "absolute knowledge" or end of cognitive dissonance and hence of falling forward.

Taken separately, the Subject and the Object are abstractions that have neither “objective reality” (Wirklichkeit) nor “empirical existence” (Dasein). What exists in reality, as soon as there is a Reality of which one speaks — and since we in fact speak of reality, there can be for us only Reality of which one speaks. What exists in reality, I say, is the Subject that knows the Object, or, what is the same thing, the Object known by the Subject. This double Reality, which is nonetheless one because it is equally real in each aspect, taken in its whole or as Totality, is called in Hegel “Spirit” (Geist) or (in the Logic) “absolute Idea.” ...But the term Begriff can also be applied to a fragment of total revealed Being, to a “constituent-element” (Moment) of the Spirit or Idea (in which case the Idea can be defined as the integration of all the Concepts — that is, of all the particular “ideas”). Taken in this sense, Begriff signifies a particular real entity or a real aspect of being, revealed by the meaning of a word — i.e., by a “general notion"; or else, what is the same thing, Begriff is a “meaning” (“idea”) that exists empirically not only in the form of an actually thought, spoken, or written word, but also as a “thing.” If the (universal or “absolute”) “Idea” is the “Truth” or the Reality revealed by speech of the one and unique totality of what exists, a (particular) "Concept” is the “Truth” of a particular real entity taken separately, but understood as an integral element of the Totality. Or else, again, the “Concept” is a “true entity” (das Wahre) — that is, a real entity named or revealed by the meaning of a word, which meaning relates it to all other real entities and thus inserts it in the "System” of the whole Real revealed by the entirety of “scientific” Discourse.
...
The concrete Real (of which we speak) is both [the] Real revealed by a discourse, and Discourse revealing [the] real. And the Hegelian experience is related neither to the Real nor to Discourse taken separately, but to their indissoluble unity. And since it is itself a revealing Discourse, it is itself an aspect of the concrete Real which it describes. It therefore brings in nothing from outside, and the thought or the discourse which is born from it is not a reflection on the Real: the Real itself is what reflects itself or is reflected in the discourse or as thought. — Kojeve

https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/kojeve.htm


I "got high" on this book. And yet we always come back down to the distinctions of common sense and the gap between subject and object. It's as if the meta-physician is a poet. We abandon very little of the "gut-level metaphysics" that sophisticated metaphysics relies on for its construction and appreciation.

The forms I referred to were candles and puddles. — Mongrel

The issue is what you're referring to by wax.

Thanks Hoo, some interesting takes. I read the Kojeve intro to Hegel some time ago but I still remember enjoying it, even if I don't remember much of the content.

One comment is that I would not equate subject/object with idea/material or thought/world. As Steiner points out we should not think of thought as either subjective or objective because the subject/ object distinction itself appears only in thought; which means thought is primary.

I agree. I was maybe a little sloppy. Thought is like distinction itself, cutting the totality into self and non-self for instance. But also cutting the totality into thought and non-thought, I suppose. That's probably why I focus on feeling-and-sensation, which plays a better "other" to thinking than the thing-in-itself (an empty negation, whereas we know feeling and sensation).

You point to the analytic function of thought, cutting, separating, making distinctions and so on: but thought has an opposing or balancing synthetic function that fuses, joins and dissolves distinctions. Perhaps the latter is more associated with "feeling-and-sensation. I see, not a dichotomy between thinking and feeling/sensation, but a synthesis of conceptualization and feeling/ sensation in thinking. I would go as far as to say that experience is thinking, for humans as much as animals in their different modes.For me, there is need to distinguish between thought and thinking as much as between what-is-experienced and experience itself.

I agree with everything that you said. I'm just trying to point out how sensation-emotion exceeds the same concept system that organizes it or is its intelligible structure. There's the concept of red and redness itself, that I can't point to without the concept. Maybe there's no-thing outside the essence-system, but that system floats in sensation-emotion.