I would be more than willing to offer a separate argument/reasoning for all of the premisses(1,2,4,6,9)...

Kant:
"The only thing which might be called an addition, though in the method of proof only, is the new refutation of psychological idealism, and the strict (and as I believe the only possible) proof of the objective reality of outer intuition. However innocent idealism may be considered with respect to the essential purposes of metaphysics (without being so in reality), it remains a scandal to philosophy, and to human reason in general, that we should have to accept the existence of things outside us (from which after all we derive the whole material for our knowledge, even for that of our inner sense) merely on trust, and have no satisfactory proof with which to counter any opponent who chooses to doubt it."
(Preface to Second Edition, Critique of Pure Reason, B XL)

Heidegger replies to the effect that the scandal is not so much that philosophy fails to prove the existence of the external world as that such proofs are expected and attempted over and over and over again.

God got in Kant's way...

Heiddy got in his own way...

Neither had a good grasp upon human thought and belief.

I think I am going to just accept the "reality" of an external independent world as an axiom, a hard core common sense presupposition inevitably involved in practice, and try to make progress from there.

I think I am going to just accept the "reality" of an external independent world as an axiom, a hard core common sense presupposition inevitably involved in practice, and try to make progress from there. — prothero

Nothing wrong with that.

Although it seems obvious to say, "Truth is correspondence of thought (belief, proposition) to what is actually the case", such an assertion nevertheless involves a metaphysical assumption - that there is a fact, object, or state of affairs, independent of our knowledge to which our knowledge corresponds.
"How, on your principles, could you know you have a true proposition?" ... or ... "How can you use your definition of truth, it being the correspondence between a judgment and its object, as a criterion of truth? How can you know when such correspondence actually holds?"

I cannot step outside my mind to compare a thought in it with something outside it.

Beck, L.W. & Holmes, R.L.; Philosophic Inquiry, p130.

'Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object'.

Kant, 1801. The Jasche Logic, in Lectures on Logic.

I think in both of these, 'corresponds' and 'agrees with' is synonymous with 'correlation' in the OP.

Neither had a good grasp upon human thought and belief. — creativesoul

But you do, right? :rofl:

Well, actually yeah to some extent. However, there's still much work to be done in terms of setting out the content of correlations. Progress is coming along well though... Thanks for asking.

No one anywhere in philosophy proper has drawn and maintained the distinction between thinking about thought and belief and thought and belief. That distinction alone can shed light on all soirts of things...

I'm quite fond of Kant actually. My position is remarkably similar to his in many ways., which ought be of no surprise. He was one of the first philosophers I read after my interest in philosophy was piqued. I'm just not a believer...

I think in both of these, 'corresponds' and 'agrees with' is synonymous with 'correlation' in the OP. — Wayfarer

Well, not quite actually...

Although my position - and this argument - situates the presupposition of correspondence within thought and belief formation, correlations are thought and belief.

This argument presupposes an external world in p4, or at least it could be argued that it does. So...

It's interesting to me on several different levels. It was not made in order to arrive at the conclusion that all philosophical positions presuppose an external world. I didn't have that in mind...

a hard core common sense presupposition inevitably involved in practice, — prothero

Doesn't the argument set that out?

:wink:

Jesus, man, take your hand off it, it's disgusting!

Jesus, man, take your hand off it, it's disgusting! — Janus

You're just jealous of the size and scope of this novelty... It is quite problematic for you. Your posts are beginning to degrade into nothing but rhetorical ad homs and/or some application of para-consistent logic. It's kinda boring.

I cannot step outside my mind to compare a thought in it with something outside it. — Wayfarer

I've heard this before. We've discussed this before as well. My viewpoint hasn't changed much regarding it.

Why would we need to step outside our mind to compare our thoughts with something other than our thoughts?

Look at your point one. It is comparing ‘objects’ and ‘agents’. So, you’re trying to argue on the basis of differentiating ‘the object’ on the one side, from ‘the act of cognising’, on the other; but in doing that, you’re assuming a perspective outside of, or above, what it is you’re wanting to describe. [Thomas Nagel has a good essay on just this point in his ‘The Last Word’.]

Really? If you care to actually back one of your claims up, then quote something I wrote and show how it counts as an "application of paraconsistent logic".

Also, I have not employed a single ad hominem argument against any of your claims. If you think I have then quote away and show how it counts as an ad hominem argument.

This is an example of an ad hominem argument (or really more of an insinuation):

You're just jealous of the size and scope of this novelty... It is quite problematic for you. — creativesoul

Focusing on the author... is not necessarily an ad hom. This is true. It is also true that you have not focused upon the author as a means for objection(which is an ad hom). So... you're right. I'm mistaken... or speaking too loosely, for sure.

The paraconsistent stuff is referring to all the times you'll say that you're not saying anything at all. That's paraphrasing of course. Surely you'll not deny that it is often the case that you will openly express that you haven't claimed X and that you haven't claimed not X. Anyway...

I'm not interested in all this focus upon you and me. I actually find your replies in many threads to be worthy of much consideration. With me, well... evidently you do not like my 'style'...

:smile:

Look at your point one. It is comparing ‘objects’ and ‘agents’. So, you’re trying to argue on the basis of differentiating ‘the object’ on the one side, from ‘the act of cognising’, on the other; but in doing that, you’re assuming a perspective outside of, or above, what it is you’re wanting to describe. [Thomas Nagel has a good essay on just this point in his ‘The Last Word’.] — Wayfarer

Yeah, I've heard that argument in different forms before as well. Nagel is pretty good. I'll have to have a look at that. Thanks. However, here's what you're referring to...

All thought/belief consists of mental correlation(s) drawn between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or the agent itself(it's own state of 'mind' when applicable). — creativesoul

This perspective doesn't require being outside of, or above, that which is being taken into consideration. It's the same story...

Thinking about pre-existing thought and belief. There is no need to be outside of anything at all. Why would there be? We can look at every and any example of human thought and/or belief as a means for determining what they all have in common that make them what they are... aside from our calling them all by the same name.

We can look at every and any example of human thought — creativesoul

But to look at them *is* to treat them as objects of analysis. And we do that so instinctively that we don't quite see that this is what we are doing. It is 'the process of objectification'. Now this is not an easy point to make, and I'm going to have to make it in a fairly roundabout way, so bear with me.

I do happen to hold to an attitude rather like Kantian idealism, in this sense - that what we call “the world” isn’t something wholly outside ourselves, something we experience in a completely detached and objective way. It’s something that is created moment by moment in our minds, by piecing together the jumble of unconnected glimpses our senses give us—and we do the 'piecing together' according to a plan that’s partly given us by our biology, partly given us by our culture, and partly a function of our individual life experience. But attempting to understand that process of 'putting together' is very difficult because the very effort of understanding it is also part of that process. That's the sense in which we can't get 'outside it'.

Now I've been having these conversations on this and other forums for nine years now, and experience tells me that at this precise point, I will usually get: 'ah, so you're a solipsist. As far as you're concerned there's nothing outside your mind. Well, how come it is than when *you* go to sleep at night, or drop dead, the world continues just as it always has??' (triumphant crossing of arms.)

So my answer to that (and no, it hardly ever works :sad: ), is that that everyone's 'experience of the world' is just this way too; they, also, never can get outside of their own perceptual and cognitive apparatus to see things 'as they are in themselves', as if from no point of view. Discursive understanding is irremediably constituted by just such a process. But post-Enlightenment philosophy generally starts from an outlook of 'assumed realism'; it has bracketed out this kind of consideration of critical self-awareness at the outset, and is only concerned with what it construes as 'scientifically ascertained facts' (from whence you get positivism of the kind advocated by Pseudonym). But science itself assumes an attitude of methodological naturalism, i.e. us as intelligent subjects in a world of given objects; it takes the reality of an objective world as a given, but doesn't really ask the question about 'what actually is "objectivity"? in the way that philosophy does.

So in the kind of analysis you're working on, you're actually drilling down (or trying to) into questions that are epistemically prior to naturalism as such. When we think about thinking, there's a problem of recursion, i.e. of trying to objectively depict the subjective processes of understanding. And that's why, despite the fact that you seem to think 'the existence of an "external" world' can be proven in a series of ten propositions, it remains a thorny philosophical problem.

So in the kind of analysis you're working on, you're actually drilling down (or trying to) into questions that are epistemically prior to naturalism as such. When we think about thinking, there's a problem of recursion, i.e. of trying to objectively depict the subjective processes of understanding. And that's why, despite the fact that you seem to think 'the existence of an "external" world can be proven in a series of ten propositions, it remains a thorny philosophical problem. — Wayfarer

I love ya Jeep...

I agree that it remains a thorny problem.

On my view, much of the problem is/was the result of poor conception. The objective/subjective dichotomy being a prima facie example thereof. What I mean is that it cannot effectively take account of that which is both, and is thus... neither.

Thought, belief, meaning, and correspondence...

There's good reason why the term object is scarequoted...

:wink:

I do happen to hold to an attitude rather like Kantian idealism, in this sense - that what we call “the world” isn’t something wholly outside ourselves, something we experience in a completely detached and objective way. — Wayfarer

I wholeheartedly agree with this...

It’s something that is created moment by moment in our minds, by piecing together the jumble of unconnected glimpses our senses give us—and we do the 'piecing together' according to a plan that’s partly given us by our biology, partly given us by our culture, and partly a function of our individual life experience. But attempting to understand that process of 'putting together' is very difficult because the very effort of understanding it is also part of that process. That's the sense in which we can't get 'outside it'. — Wayfarer

Here though, you take the equally extreme other end...

The world is not entirely outside of ourselves that we experience in a completely detached and objective way, nor is the world something that is entirely created by us, in our minds...

I'm in the middle of those two extremes. I think Kant was as well.

The world is not entirely outside of ourselves that we experience in a completely detached and objective way, nor is the world something that is entirely created by us, in our minds... — creativesoul

Right - but I'm not saying it is simply ‘dreamed up’ by us; it is not simply 'in the mind' but always has an irredeemably subjective pole or aspect - which is almost always 'bracketed out' by 'dogmatic realism'. And I also think that was Kant's view, and the crucial point of the CPR.

Right - but I'm not saying it is simply ‘dreamed up’ by us; it is not simply 'in the mind' but always has an irredeemably subjective pole or aspect - which is almost always 'bracketed out' by 'dogmatic realism'. And I also think that was Kant's view, and the crucial point of the CPR. — Wayfarer

Yeah. My apologies...

We agree here. I've no problem with Kant's Noumena, as I understand it to be... a negative limit on our thoughts, and that's it! For me, it is equivalent to the unknown 'realm'. His Pure Intuition was also a mark of his genius!

See we're just making my point about the dichotomy... as we speak! It cannot take account of that which is both. Toss it and come to better terms.

I agree with your argument, but how do you justify #4? Couldn't an idealist just deny it?

Hey Marchesk...

One could deny any one of the premisses, I would think. Common sense prevails to me...

A correlation requires a plurality of things. As far as I'm concerned, that is a death knell to any and all solipsistic views. An idealist has his/her own issues to deal with. I just stumbled upon this argument while re-reading one of my older threads... Thought it was interesting. Could be better though.

This argument presupposes an external world in p4 — creativesoul

Which makes it fallacious. Do you have an argument to support p4?

What's the formal fallacy?

I disagree with every premise