there is an obvious difference between something existing at a time, T and something not existing at that time. — PossibleAaran
In another sense, I 'know' that P only if there is some reliable method by which I could establish that P. Note that reliability is a de facto concept. A method can be reliable even if I have no way of proving that it is reliable to anyone who doubts it, and even if I couldn't prove it to even a single person. For a method to be reliable is merely for it to be a method which, when used in the right circumstances and in the right way, produces beliefs which are true more often than not. — PossibleAaran
Also we should remember Berkeley’s original aphorism was esse est percipe, to be is to be perceived. The word ‘exist’ doesn’t come into it. — Wayfarer
if the object didn't exist, our present experience wouldn't be the way it is — gurugeorge
They are real, but their reality is in some sense dependent on the mental or composed of the mental. — Thorongil
As I have said to Banno, perceive the piece of paper as many times as you like, this is never sufficient to show that it exists unperceived. Perception is only a reliable guide to things that are actually perceived, and obviously nothing is ever perceived while unperceived. So in answer to your question, any actually reliable method would be what I imagine available - not a method for which it is contradictory to suppose it could reveal the alleged fact. — PossibleAaran
Any reliable means of determining that things exist unperceived is fine with me. It doesn't have to be a perfect method or a guaranteeing method or what have you. Just a plain old trustworthy method that gets things right more often than not. — PossibleAaran
As I have said to Banno, perceive the piece of paper as many times as you like, this is never sufficient to show that it exists unperceived. — PossibleAaran
How is that any different from saying that when you see a table in front of you, you 'blatantly' assume that the table exists - that you assume that there is a cause of the visual sensation that you have of a certain shape, because the visual sensation and the table are not the same thing? By what argument can you move from the visual sensation to the table?This view, that "everything is connected" blatantly assumes that things exist unperceived. Take the drone of an electric motor example. When I hear the noise, if I come to believe that anything more than the noise exists at that time I will have to assume that the cause of the noise exists unperceived, since the noise and the motor are not the same thing. By what argument can I move from the noise to the motor? — PossibleAaran
Idealists do not dispute the existence of objects, they simply give a unique answer to the question of what objects are. Instead of being a collection of mind-independent bits of physical matter, the idealist will say that objects of experience depend upon the mind for their content (an epistemological claim) or that they are ideas in the mind, whether my mind, other people's, or God's (an ontological claim). The idealist, in other words, is not committed to the notion that our knowledge of objects is illusory, i.e. unreal. They are real, but their reality is in some sense dependent on the mental or composed of the mental. — Thorongil
But this conflates epistemology with ontology. Just because there is a process by which we come to know about the world doesn't mean the world is constituted of that process. — Marchesk
There is no knowledge of the world apart from perception. — Janus
Even perceiving the piece of paper is insufficient to convince some folk that it exists - they suggest brain vats and daemons and such.
What you are convinced by, and what you believe, are up to you. If you refuse to believe that the cup was still in the kitchen that's entirely up to you. — Banno
Be aware of what your rejection of such obvious stuff tells us about you. You are one step away from Bedlam. Given your opinion on such arguments as this, we should take care with whatever else you say.
You are following a classic philosophical garden path. It leads to much more poor thinking.
So why should we pay you any attention? — Banno
At any one time there will be one or two threads here in which some neophyte explains patiently to we dullards that we can't prove anything. — Banno
How is that any different from saying that when you see a table in front of you, you 'blatantly' assume that the table exists - that you assume that there is a cause of the visual sensation that you have of a certain shape, because the visual sensation and the table are not the same thing? By what argument can you move from the visual sensation to the table?
Taking that approach, one has to conclude that every non-mental thing is unperceived, because we only ever perceive the phenomenon, not the noumenon 'behind' it. — andrewk
. I asked what reliable method there was for determining it to be true. — PossibleAaran
Inference from sense perception. — PossibleAaran
I am not assuming anything. I'm asking whether you regard seeing something as perceiving it, but do not regard hearing something as perceiving it. That seems to be implied by your statement (at the top of this post: ) that we do not perceive a motor that we hear, but that we do perceive a table that we see.You are assuming the veil of perception in these remarks. When the table is in front of me, it is given to my conscious awareness, or more plainly, I see it. I don't merely assume it to be so. Assuming that sense perception is reliable, I can reliably tell that it is there. My point in the OP is that, even assuming that all of our usual methods are reliable, there is still no way to tell that anything exists unperceived. So that's the difference. — PossibleAaran
The method I am accepting is quite straight forward. When I look at the piece of paper its existence is something of which I am immediately aware. It is there right before me in conscious view. When this is so, I have reliably established that the paper exists. I am tempted by the thought that this is more than reliability, and more like certainty, but I feel like that might be problematic and so I hesitate. Let's just say that when the paper is right before my conscious view, it is more likely than not that the paper exists. — PossibleAaran
hat classic scientific theories assume that things exist unperceived is a kind of bias of those theories. It isn't needed to make sense of them, so far as I can tell. It just requires imagination and the willingness to entertain views which are different to what we ordinarily accept. — PossibleAaran
Idealists do not dispute the existence of objects, they simply give a unique answer to the question of what objects are. Instead of being a collection of mind-independent bits of physical matter, the idealist will say that objects of experience depend upon the mind for their content (an epistemological claim) or that they are ideas in the mind, whether my mind, other people's, or God's (an ontological claim). The idealist, in other words, is not committed to the notion that our knowledge of objects is illusory, i.e. unreal. They are real, but their reality is in some sense dependent on the mental or composed of the mental. — Thorongil
I think I would distinguish the table from my perception of it, but I don't think I would necessarily distinguish it from all perceptions of it. Maybe references to the table are to the set of all perceptions that ever occur of it, past, present and future, by anybody that ever perceives it.AndrewK - the question I have for you is, is ‘the real table’ the cause of ‘the perception of the table’? If that is so, how do you distinguish them? How can you demonstrate what ‘the real table’ is, as distinct from the perception of the table which you and I have, when we look at it? — Wayfarer
I do take the scientific method to be reliable (dropping issues about "the" scientific method). But it seems to me perfectly possible to interpret the findings of science in an Idealist way, without doing anything that contradicts the evidence. That classic scientific theories assume that things exist unperceived is a kind of bias of those theories. It isn't needed to make sense of them, so far as I can tell. It just requires imagination and the willingness to entertain views which are different to what we ordinarily accept. — PossibleAaran
Berkeley, for one, does not do that, though. He provides arguments. — Thorongil
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