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
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!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
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.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
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.The problem resides in taking the methodological attitude of ‘objectivity’ as a metaphysical axiom, which it isn’t; — Wayfarer
And this is why we have metaphysical ignorance.because reality is not actually something we are outside of or apart from — 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.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
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?I would not define "real" in a way so as to exclude relations from being real, such that only absolutes are real. — Metaphysician Undercover
So what are these principles?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
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
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
Damn sign, you just made my brain hurt! Am I not being open-minded by declaring metaphysical ignorance as axiomatic?! :joke:I am interested though in precisely this metaphysical ignorance as a metaphysical axiom. — sign
Yeah, it does seem that Berkeley proposes an epistemological idealism.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
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.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
Would you not say that Plato's theory of the forms informed idealism also?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
Damn sign, you just made my brain hurt! Am I not being open-minded by declaring metaphysical ignorance as axiomatic?! :joke: — Happenstance
You've given me some food for thought here, I'm going to have to come back to you on this one.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
I'll try! :up:Ha. Well, I'd love to see what else you have to say about the issue. — sign
Fair enough! I'm happy to have at least not been boring.You've given me some food for thought here, I'm going to have to come back to you on this on. — Happenstance
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!You're too kind. Thanks! — sign
Would you not say that Plato's theory of the forms informed idealism also? — Happenstance
Meaning and coherence are subjective. — Terrapin Station
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
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
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
What is your definition of real? — Happenstance
So what are these principles? — Happenstance
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.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
I thought I did. I said an explanation is a use of language, and then I explained what language is.I agree, but you didn't go into how you understand explanation. What is an explanation? — 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.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
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.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
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
If meaning and coherence are subjective, then how or why would we do philosophy? — sign
Do you have something in mind like intersubjective coherence? — sign
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
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
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
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
I agree with all this, and indeed it's crucial to my point. Note the 'we' that appears here.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
That would be the case no matter the ontological reality of meaning. — Terrapin Station
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
The real puzzler is why people are so averse to subjectivity. — Terrapin Station
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
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