So it seems coherent to me that one person can have insight into reality based on their own experiences even if they can't express this to others. I have ideas I find it hard to express or convince people of myself but they can be dismissed based on the idea they go against majority consensus or their failure to convince people for whatever reason. — Andrew4Handel
I don't believe that consensus or convincing anyone is necessary. Of course often other people's opinions are of interest, maybe pointing out missed aspects of things. So one can learn from others, but when it really comes down to it, consensus or convincing others doesn't matter. — Michael Ossipoff
So it seems coherent to me that one person can have insight into reality based on their own experiences even if they can't express this to others. — Andrew4Handel
You wrote:
I think this issue comes up most prominently in issues about mental states and who can be an authority on mental states.
But the question was about philosophical matters. — Michael Ossipoff
However, we do not want to get "locked in" to our own subjective experiences. Your admission that you have ideas that you can't express to others is useful. We all have this difficulty at times, and by groping through the problem, we may discover the means to communicate what was previously "untranslatable". — Bitter Crank
Rather than frame it in terms of who can be an authority, why not frame it in terms of what mental states consist in/of? — creativesoul
I grew up in a strict religious household where you were never allowed to question. I suppose there was a notion of absolute truth as well. So I had a lot of private (solipsistic) reflection.
I think you need to create en environment where people can express themselves without censure. Free speech seems to be the first thing clamped down on by a dictatorship or autocracy etc.
But I think there are many forms of censorship and I think I have felt powerless or trapped for most of my life. — Andrew4Handel
Phenomenology doesn't have what it takes — creativesoul
The best defense against censorship is to speak up, speak openly, and speak often — Bitter Crank
It is not a phenomenological analysis so to speak but it is respecting the phenomenology of others. How would feel about being paralysed? I don't know but I can't safely impose that speculation or model on someone else. — Andrew4Handel
It seems to me that in order to understand anything you have to do it personally. I don't know how objectivity is being defined these days, but at bottom to know something, you have to know and understand something personally. For example 2+2 =4 may be meaningless to someone who hasn't studied maths.
People obviously have private knowledge for example if someone is alone in the house and breaks a mug, at one stage they are the only person who knows this.
So it seems coherent to me that one person can have insight into reality based on their own experiences even if they can't express this to others. I have ideas I find it hard to express or convince people of myself but they can be dismissed based on the idea they go against majority consensus or their failure to convince people for whatever reason.
If something cannot be translated, expressed, or alluded to, if it can't be put into words, sounds or symbols then I doubt its existence. — Cavacava
Same with 2+2...line up the apples and ask someone who never studied math, but who loves eating apples a lot...try to short change them. — Cavacava
to know something, you have to know and understand something personally — Andrew4Handel
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.