There is no asking what meaning is.

Thought is proper to man alone – not, however, to man only as an isolated individual subject; we have to look at thought as essentially objective. — Hegel

Note the humanism. Perhaps materialism is appealing to some as a flight from anthropomorphism. Is this flight from anthropomorphism not also the institution of a new essence of the human? I am more human or a better human by being anti-anthropomorphic (fighting against today's humanism.) The truly human wants to see around the human. (And finds the human as this wanting to see around the human?)

Perhaps it's best to think of idealism in terms of meaning-ism. If meaning is understood as above as being objective rather than subjective, then thinking of meaning in terms of the isolated mind misses the point entirely. One starts with a narrow concept of meaning and begins by (impossibly) setting it up as trapped in a subject cut off from world, neglecting that language or meaning is already the essence of the world. This essence as language of the world can dissonantly dream of a world before language and a language before the world.

Berkeley is a proper empiricist, all the laws of nature are preserved, real and empirically knowable. With everything being an idea of God causation is also explained. There is no necessary connection between events except Gods will, event A precedes event B because God makes it this way. God is the ultimate causal force in the universe, being finite spirits ourselves we also have some minor causal efficacy but none whatsoever exists in objects. — Jamesk

Wayfarer forwarded the idea that we are not in error in what we perceive, it's our judgements that are in error about what we perceive. And as I've now read the Dialogues, this does seem consistent in what the Philonous character states. And furthermore, when we pull the oar out of the water, we see that the oar is straight. Sight and touch converge to the actuality of the oar, the convergence due to God of course!

But this is strange because water and other liquids (themselves an idea rather than a physical entity), produce this error in judgement constantly and appealing to laws of refraction would be kicking the stone also. What is also strange is that we all have an idea that this planet is covered mostly by water which means that God is the cause of this idea and that most of our world is prone to this error in judgement constantly??!!

Why God does such a thing is not forthcoming and all we are left with then is faith that God has his reasons for such because Berkeley doesn't explain it further and considering he wrote such to dispel scepticism and atheism, he hasn't done a very good job of it in my view, in fact it leaves me with more answers than before!

The dialogues make no bones about criticising atheism and goes as far to say that if I realize objective realism is mistaken then I would realize atheism is mistaken also. But my atheism was neither informed by science or philosophy, it just seemed a ridiculous story to me just like stories of Zeus or Odin are ridiculous. A believer may say that what I stated is clichéd but this is only because it's a matter of fact for many atheists. And the thing about my atheism is that, in itself, it doesn't inform my belief in an objective realism. Can this be said of subjective realists with deity and the like?

I have not encountered a believer in such that isn't informed by a belief in deity, or some other greater power, because what I call the persistence of existence (such that a tree is still there when not being perceived) can only be with some deistic figure perceiving it so. I find it quite amazing that, given Berkeley is an empiricist and a nominalist, he doesn't appeal to parsimony or question what he does or doesn't experience about deity??!! Look at it from my point of view; either I believe that matter is actual or deity is actual! This to me, is the crux of the matter (if you pardon the pun!)

I should clarify that will only defend Berkeley up to a point. I think his fundamental intuition is sound, but the way that I interpret it is in the sense that it reminds us that we are participants in reality, and not just observers of it; — Wayfarer

Yes Berkeley does state as such in that we have volitional cause but God is the prime causer, so to speak. But as you see from my answer to JamesK above, all we are left with is faith because deity himself (or spiritual realm) is shy about such things.

The problem resides in taking the methodological attitude of ‘objectivity’ as a metaphysical axiom, which it isn’t; — Wayfarer

Whatever metaphysical axioms are afoot, we all have metaphysical ignorance so saying what is or isn't seems to me something we can't be sure of. I don't presume that objective reality is right and subjective reality is wrong, just that objective reality, i.e. physicalism, is a story well told in my view. Granted that physicalism is by no means an epistemic done deal but I prefer it's uncertainty to any other metaphysical notions' uncertainty.

because reality is not actually something we are outside of or apart from — Wayfarer

And this is why we have metaphysical ignorance.

So ‘the real’ can only properly be known by the sage or philosopher who, in the Western philosophical tradition at least, ascends by the use of reason to the ‘vision of the One’ (which is the meaning of the allegory of the Cave). — Wayfarer

So wait a minute, you have forwarded a statement that illusions are erroneous judgements and now you're saying that enlightened people who endorse a theory of the forms can only know what's real? So not-real (i.e. illusion) is erroneous judgement and real is correct judgement so long as you buy into anything that isn't objective realism? It all seems wishy-washy to me in its so-long-it's-not objective-realism attitude.

I would not define "real" in a way so as to exclude relations from being real, such that only absolutes are real. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, so again you've just stated in different words that you don't think real is absolutely being. What is your definition of real?

So if we assume this distinction between real and not real, we would need some principles to differentiate one from the other in this context. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what are these principles?

Whatever metaphysical axioms are afoot, we all have metaphysical ignorance so saying what is or isn't seems to me something we can't be sure of. — Happenstance

Hi. I relate to that kind of openmindedness. I am interested though in precisely this metaphysical ignorance as a metaphysical axiom. I associate this with Hegel's critique of Kant. To start from the idea of a gap between us and the absolute is actually to start with the same absolute being placed beyond us. 'The absolute is closed to us' is itself embraced as an absolute principle. At the very least this is fascinating. Note that this is also language pointing outside itself to an 'essence' it can never touch. Such an essence must be nonconceptual it seems. But surely sensation or emotion aren't either, excepting for certain romantics. Does this mean the absolute is worshiped as a Nothing ? An impossible object in the distance, a horizon that outruns us? Or do we get closer?

In some ways this is like the idea that the history philosophy teaches us nothing. That nothing it teaches us is not only something but something sometimes embraced as the height of intellectual sophistication. The highest achievement of rationality is its self-recognition of its necessary failure. (The skeptic in me relates to this view, but I can't enjoy it as the whole story.)

Berkeley says the world is real and therefore physical, the physical things in his world are not made of matter. Matter can exist independently and ideas cannot.

You point out the second weakness of his theory which is his lack of metaphysics for God. His first weakness is approaching the whole deal from the Cartesian internal introspection point of view.

The quasi-Cartesian stance can be forgiven, is there really a better way for us to acquire knowledge? But his absent metaphysics of God are more I think a product of his time.

In Berkeley's time atheism was in it's early stages, the vast majority of the western world believed in a God whom they were scared of. God was much more taken for granted then than now. I think that this may explain his glossing over of the subject because people had a much stronger idea of God than they do today.

Idealism was born out of Melebranche's occasionalism which had God destroying and recreating the world on a second to second basis, thus being present in all of our lives. Berkeley say's why would God make such massive and destructive efforts just to prove his existence when he could do the whole thing mentally

Look at it from my point of view; either I believe that matter is actual or deity is actual! This to me, is the crux of the matter (if you pardon the pun!) — Happenstance

I like the crux here, because what about deity-in-matter or deity-as-matter. For instance, Heidegger reminds of us pre-theoretical life where the 'subject' is dissolved in the 'object' (tool use) and the object in a meaningful world in a nexus of other tools.

No doubt we can imagine (in some problematic way) that 'matter' (whatever it is exactly supposed to be) was here first and be here after. If we identify the actual with durability, then matter becomes tempting as the actual. On the other hand, this whole line of thought exists as meaning. Perhaps the materialist forgets the ideal nature of matter (itself an abstraction in some views from a stream of sensation and therefore a part of universal spirit in others), and the idealist forgets the entanglement of meaning in its other. We can even postulate that the distinction between 'mind' and 'matter' is necessarily ambiguous, precisely because 'mind' is entangled in 'matter.' --or also note that the distinction is already a metaphysical axiom that obscures how we actually live in or even as meaning-matter. If language is the essence of the world (another way to frame idealism), then this language has a worldly flesh which makes separating itself from the world impossible.

*Derrida seems to be emphasizing the flesh of language that it can't peel off. Traditional metaphysics is like language that dreams of peeling its flesh off to peek at its skeleton.

I am interested though in precisely this metaphysical ignorance as a metaphysical axiom. — sign

Damn sign, you just made my brain hurt! Am I not being open-minded by declaring metaphysical ignorance as axiomatic?! :joke:

Berkeley says the world is real and therefore physical, the physical things in his world are not made of matter. Matter can exist independently and ideas cannot. — Jamesk

Yeah, it does seem that Berkeley proposes an epistemological idealism.

In Berkeley's time atheism was in it's early stages, the vast majority of the western world believed in a God whom they were scared of. God was much more taken for granted then than now. I think that this may explain his glossing over of the subject because people had a much stronger idea of God than they do today. — Jamesk

It does seem like Berkeley is writing to atheist intellectuals rather than common folk. Much in the way Pascal did earlier, but whereas Pascal uses pragmatism, Berkeley uses scepticism.

Idealism was born out of Melebranche's occasionalism which had God destroying and recreating the world on a second to second basis, thus being present in all of our lives. Berkeley say's why would God make such massive and destructive efforts just to prove his existence when he could do the whole thing mentally — Jamesk

Would you not say that Plato's theory of the forms informed idealism also?

Damn sign, you just made my brain hurt! Am I not being open-minded by declaring metaphysical ignorance as axiomatic?! :joke: — Happenstance

Ha. Well, I'd love to see what else you have to say about the issue. (And of course I trusted your open-mindedness as I raised the weird issue.) I just love these crazy (?) thoughts.

No doubt we can imagine (in some problematic way) that 'matter' (whatever it is exactly supposed to me) was here first and be here after. If we identify the actual with durability, then matter becomes tempting as the actual. On the other hand, this whole line of thought exists as meaning. Perhaps the materialist forgets the ideal nature of matter (itself an abstraction in some views from a stream of sensation), and the idealist forgets the entanglement of meaning in its other. We can even postulate that the distinction between 'mind' and 'matter' is necessarily ambiguous, precisely because 'mind' is entangled in 'matter.' --or rather because the distinction is already metaphysical axiom that obscures how we actually live in or even as meaning-matter. — sign

You've given me some food for thought here, I'm going to have to come back to you on this one.

Ha. Well, I'd love to see what else you have to say about the issue. — sign

I'll try! :up:

You've given me some food for thought here, I'm going to have to come back to you on this on. — Happenstance

Fair enough! I'm happy to have at least not been boring.

I'm high on some new insights lately about just how idealistic 'all' philosophy really is some sense. Varieties of religious experience idealism-humanism.

Fair enough! I'm happy to have at least not been boring. — sign

Boring?!! Never!!

You're too kind. Thanks!

You're too kind. Thanks! — sign

Sorry I can't stay around and chat, have to get out early to avoid the xmas shopping rush, But I promise I will mull over your posts and hopefully have something interesting to say later!

Sounds great. I look forward to it. May your drive be pleasant.

Would you not say that Plato's theory of the forms informed idealism also? — Happenstance

Plato is the first dualist as I see it but not necessarily an idealist. Berkeley is talking to the followers of Descartes who agreed on material and spiritual substances hence the duality. Berkeley tells them to just drop the material substance and everything else can be explained.

Meaning and coherence are subjective. — Terrapin Station

I am taking this out of context, but I wanted to reply in a different way than before.

If meaning and coherence are subjective, then how or why would we do philosophy? Do you have something in mind like intersubjective coherence? I can imagine meaning and coherence being distributed and separated in different minds, and maybe there is no perfect overlap of two individual experiences of meaning and coherence. But there has to be significant overlap to make philosophy possible. How could you or any other thinker hope to offer anything valuable to another thinker without appealing to a similar meaning and coherence? And how could objects in the world be objective (for me and you both independent of our wishful thinking) without assuming an immense overlap in the interpretation of sensation? (I'd say we just grasp chairs as things we sit on and only come up with sense-data theories much later to patch up the theoretical construction of the subject opposed to the object.) Or if we just directly see the object, then how do we nevertheless assemble a shared coherent picture of the world, which we can't see all at once?

Immensely sympathetic to Husserl. His criticism of Descartes is a must-read.

But this is strange because water and other liquids (themselves an idea rather than a physical entity), produce this error in judgement constantly and appealing to laws of refraction would be kicking the stone also. What is also strange is that we all have an idea that this planet is covered mostly by water which means that God is the cause of this idea and that most of our world is prone to this error in judgement constantly??!! — Happenstance

I think you're in a bit of a tangle here with what Berkeley is really saying. The place of God in Berkeley's philosophy is not as the guarantor that our ideas and perceptions are correct. The place is, as far as I understand it, as the guarantor that the Universe exists unperceived by humans, because it is still being perceived by the Creator. There is the well-known and oft-quoted limerick which might have already been posted in this very thread, but it's such a gem it can hardly be repeated too often:

There once was a man who said: "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

"Dear Sir:
Your astonishment's odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by

Yours faithfully,
God.

But my atheism was neither informed by science or philosophy, it just seemed a ridiculous story to me just like stories of Zeus or Odin are ridiculous. A believer may say that what I stated is clichéd but this is only because it's a matter of fact for many atheists. And the thing about my atheism is that, in itself, it doesn't inform my belief in an objective realism. Can this be said of subjective realists with deity and the like? — Happenstance

Pardon the personal digression, but it's necessary to frame my response. I'm in the position of being (I hope) neither atheist nor believer. I discovered what might be termed popular Eastern mysticism in my teens and early adulthood and that resonates with me to this day. From those sources, I learned of what is called 'Realisation'. This is not really a religious belief per se, but a state of intuitive unity (=yoga) with the principle underlying all existence. It’s both similar to, and also very different from, how religion is understood in Western culture.

Anyway to cut a very long story short, I came to the view that 'God is not God' early in life (in fact, wrote an essay on it). What I mean by that is that many people's notion of 'God' is indeed something like Zeus. In fact the Latin name for Zeus is Jupiter, which is derived from the Sanskrit 'Dyaus-Pitar', which means, literally, 'sky-father'. So it is not a large leap from there to 'our father, who art in Heaven'.

But on the other hand, I have also come to understand that these archetypal mythologies play a real role in the individual and collective psyche; they're not simply illusions or projections, but (to quote one of the sages that I encountered through my readings), 'they're as real as the people who believe in them'.

The basis of any of these philosophies, theistic or not, is, in my view, a sense of relatedness to the Cosmos and all that this entails. (Read this!) Whatever is ‘virtuous’ is what opens up that sense of relatedness, whatever is ‘vicious’ is what drives illusion and the sense of otherness. Stories of gods and religious mythologies are the outer form of this inner reality.

you have forwarded a statement that illusions are erroneous judgements and now you're saying that enlightened people who endorse a theory of the forms can only know what's real? So not-real (i.e. illusion) is erroneous judgement and real is correct judgement so long as you buy into anything that isn't objective realism? It all seems wishy-washy to me in its so-long-it's-not objective-realism attitude. — Happenstance

There’s a lot more to it than that. The Platonic Academy was a place of very rigorous and multi-disciplinary training across the whole curriculum. It was the early model of what was to become the University. And what you’re calling ‘objective realism’ is a very recent arrival!

What is your definition of real? — Happenstance

I would not define a term like that, because it has too many different uses in different contexts. I might define it for use in a particular context, but I'd have to make clear that the definition is for that particular context only, otherwise you'd see me using it in another way in another context.

So what are these principles? — Happenstance

I can't say that I have an answer to this question because I do not understand the context. This thread appears to wander all over the place, and with such wanderings I do not see a particular context whereby we could set up such criteria. To list such principles would be an attempt to restrict the wanderings of the thread, and the stated principles might just as likely be wrong as right. To produce such principles, I'd have to refer to something else to validate them, but what could I refer to?

Imagine a person tripping on some hallucinogenic drug. That individual might start getting the feeling that it's difficult to distinguish between what's real and not real. As the effect of the drug continues to build, the anxiety over the inability to distinguish real from not real may intensify. How could that person possibly establish principles or criteria to distinguish between real and not real? If the feeling persists, that a distinction between real and not real must be made, the anxiety will increase, as the person falls deeper into the trap of knowing that what needs to be done cannot be done. The only solution is for the person to relax and forget about this problem, because it's not a real problem in the first place. And in believing "it's not a real problem", the person has demonstrated to oneself the capacity to distinguish real from not real, so that the problem is actually resolved.

That's true, and that's the difference between this hypothetical deterministic 'entailment' and purely logical entailment. We can't be wrong about logical entailment (if we are being logical at least, and if were not we would not be wrong but would be missing the point). — Janus

It seems to me that if something is logical, it is deterministic. If the same input is put into a logical system, you always get the same output. Same cause leads to the same effect.

I think that the idea of anything being nonphysical is incoherent.

Meaning can be pinpointed as physical events in our brains. (I wouldn't say "reduced" because that suggests we're changing something in some manner. We're not. We're simply correctly identifying what something is ontologically.) If meaning is supposed to be located elsewhere, there's no evidence for it obtaining in or amounting to a process of other physical things. And it can't be something nonphysical because the very idea of that is incoherent.

I agree, but you didn't go into how you understand explanation. What is an explanation? — sign

I thought I did. I said an explanation is a use of language, and then I explained what language is.

I agree. I think being-in-a-world-with-others is something like a basic structure of experience. I see an lamp on my desk as see-able also by others and as something I can switch on for light. I expect others (within my community) to also grasp it immediately as something one can switch on for light and as something that I can see. I grasp the word 'lamp' as grasping such things in a vagueness that covers many individual lamps. So we start from somewhere like this, understanding 'too much.' And then an atomic reconstruction needs to forget this complex unity of self, others, and world through language in order to build it all back up. — sign

Yeah, but how did we get to the point of "understanding too much" in the first place if we didn't already start from a deconstructed state and then built it all up? The presence of culture and other human beings dominated our development and has a huge impact in developing our established norms - like there are human beings and I'm one of them.

These are great points and questions. An imperfect answer would be that when we are just gliding along pre-theoretically through life the notion of the external world never comes up. I am 'in' the world which is not an object for theory. I drive home for work, at one with the driving. I know that other drivers are in the same world with me. They can see the objects I see (if they are paying attention.) Sharing a world full of objects with others and a language with others is something like a foundation that obscures itself. A critic of this automatic view might talk of presupposing the external. I 'unconsciously' presuppose the reality of the everyday world. But talk of presuppositions arguably just projects a theoretical gaze that just isn't there, covering up the phenomenon of being-in-the-world.

The synchronization of our senses does seem to play a huge role in this. When we see an object, we expect that we can touch it too (though we learn that things like shadows break the general rule.) — sign

Yes. I've often put "external" and "internal" in quotes as I don't really see it as an inside vs. outside thing. I agree.

In this sense, a "view" is a unique (subjective) model of the world from a point in space/time. Our view is from somewhere as the world appears relative to our heads (remember what I mentioned before). We all know that the world is not located relative to our heads, but that is how it appears. Why?

I said we sense particular things like trees, but we do not sense matter because it is in no sense of the word a particular thing. "Matter" in no way refers to any particular thing which we sense. Where's the problem? — Metaphysician Undercover

One problem with this is that there isn't anything that's not a particular. That's not to say that there are not abstract or general concepts (types, universals, whatever we want to call them), but concepts are particular events (or series/"sets" of events) in our particular brains. When you take a universal term to refer to a "real abstract," all that it's really referring to is a very vague, particular idea of a "real abstract," in your particular head, at a particular time.

Outside of that, as has been pointed out to you many times- -and not just by me--"tree" refers to a universal just as much as "matter" does. Neither is a "proper name.". So it's not as if you have a doctrine that one only senses things picked out by non-universal terms.

If meaning and coherence are subjective, then how or why would we do philosophy? — sign

Because we want to know what the world is like, and we believe it's worthwhile to examine that with a methodological approach different than science in addition to doing it with science's methodological approach. That would be the case no matter the ontological reality of meaning. The whole point is to figure out what meaning really is, how it really works, which just as when we're doing science, can easily turn out to be contrary to conventional wisdom, conventional ways of looking at it, etc.

The real puzzler is why people are so averse to subjectivity.

Do you have something in mind like intersubjective coherence? — sign

Lord no. I think that the whole idea of "intersubjectivity" is nonsense outside of the fact that we can agree with and cooperate with each other. "Intersubjectivity" is an intentionally fuzzy invention of folks who are averse to/uncomfortable with subjectivity but who realize that claiming that things like meaning and ethical stances are objective is ridiculous.

But there has to be significant overlap to make philosophy possible. How could you or any other thinker hope to offer anything valuable to another thinker without appealing to a similar meaning and coherence? — sign

Your assumption here is "philosophy isn't possible, and even if it were it would offer nothing of value, if we couldn't know that we have the same or at least remarkably similar meanings (and assessments of coherence, etc.)"

The mystery is why that would be the assumption. We could go through how communication works on my view step by step if you're interested, but that will probably take some time and it's a significant enough tangent that we should probably start another thread on it if you're interested.

And how could objects in the world be objective (for me and you both independent of our wishful thinking) without assuming an immense overlap in the interpretation of sensation? — sign

That question particular strikes me as bizarre. Objectivity in no way hinges on us. The objective world would be there just the same if life had never started.

Or if we just directly see the object, then how do we nevertheless assemble a shared coherent picture of the world, which we can't see all at once? — sign

What's shared are the observable parts of language, for example. Explaining how this works logistically could be part of the longer discussion about how communication works on my view.

Materiality is a phenomenological notion; it denotes the solidity, liquidity, or airiness, texture, weightiness or lightness and so on, of phenomena. I have no doubt that Berkeley would say that all these material qualities are thought and perceived by God (after all He knows all things !) just as the objects in themselves are, and that they are therefore real in a human-mind independent way.

You have missed the point of the difference between logical entailment and physical determination. Even if you wanted to say they are the same that would be reliant on the assumption that rigid determinism obtains, which is itself not logically necessary and we don't and can't know empirically whether it does or does not obtain , and yet we can and do know what is logically entailed by premises.

I think that the whole idea of "intersubjectivity" is nonsense outside of the fact that we can agree with and cooperate with each other. — Terrapin Station

The possibility of agreement and cooperation is exactly what is intended. I have the sense that 'intersubjectivty' is misunderstood in terms of some entity, some magical quasi-physical item.

Okay, but how would the fact that we can agree ("I think that nonconsensual killing is wrong"--"Hey! I think that nonconsensual killing is wrong, too!") or the fact that we can cooperate ("Let's make that illegal then") have any impact on the fact that morality, meaning, etc. are subjective?

Because we want to know what the world is like, and we believe it's worthwhile to examine that with a methodological approach different than science in addition to doing it with science's methodological approach. — Terrapin Station

I agree with all this, and indeed it's crucial to my point. Note the 'we' that appears here.

That would be the case no matter the ontological reality of meaning. — Terrapin Station

I agree, and I'd even say that it's absurd in some sense to categorize meaning. The sign escapes the instituting question of philosophy ('what is it?')

The whole point is to figure out what meaning really is, how it really works, which just as when we're doing science, can easily turn out to be contrary to conventional wisdom, conventional ways of looking at it, etc. — Terrapin Station

Indeed. I agree here to. And I am personally challenging the conventional wisdom that meaning or language is only in the subject (the subject as a concept is itself a meaning, an abstraction.)

The real puzzler is why people are so averse to subjectivity. — Terrapin Station

I don't think it's an aversion to subjectivity. It's just we, who want to know what the world is like, can come to realize that we are engaged in a social project of working together to figure out what the world is like. It seems to be a fact that we bring signs to other human beings to have them recognized as representing or unveiling the real. The very notion of the real seems to involve what is true for us and not just me. The appeal of the 'physical' seems to lie in just this. It is one image of the true-for-us-and-not-just-me.

Okay, but how would the fact that we can agree ("I think that nonconsensual killing is wrong"--"Hey! I think that nonconsensual killing is wrong, too!") or the fact that we can cooperate ("Let's make that illegal then") have any impact on the fact that morality, meaning, etc. are subjective? — Terrapin Station

If I make the string of words 'Let's make that illegal, then' by vibrating the air a certain way, surely it's not the physical energy of that vibrating air that helps get a law passed. Those vibrations are intelligible. Roughly speaking, an image of what we might and should do is somehow repeated in the mind of the listener. And such a thing only makes sense if we understand ourselves to be in the same world, talking about the same objects. These arbitrary signs, the spoken words, are charged with an imperfectly shared meaning. To learn a language is to enter in to a kind of network, where the vibrations of the air take on meaning that they would otherwise not have. (I don't think this is a perfect description of what is going on. I agree that we should keep trying to figure it out. It's not about mystifying but rather about clarifying the 'we of language' that makes this conversation possible. )