it must require absolutely enormous skills and intellect to try and do that. And at this time, as is often discussed, mathematical cosmology is beset by a number of enormous conceptual problems which I know I can't even understand. — Wayfarer

I think the math is what we can understand and yet the relation of the math to ordinary consciousness is maybe especially difficult these days. I haven't given QM much thought since I looked into it years ago, but I remember it being strange. We seem to be reduced the 'silence of algorithm.' As I hinted at with @leo, some of our explanations are metaphorically incoherent. A wave and particular? But they still work as functional relationships between measurements.

So I don't deny the conceptual problems. Indeed I think we get conceptual problems in philosophy by trying to work in the subject-object paradigm as if in a quasi-mathematical 'ideal' language. In short, we know how to use 'I' and 'physical' and 'mental' and so on in everyday life. But we can't pin them down and do armchair 'math'/metaphysics with them. For me the great newer philosophers have pointed out the artificiality of various theories that we take for granted, like the water we swim in. We are trapped in metaphors and/or paradigms until we're exposed to the creative revelation of an alternative. (Which might just be a remembering.)

Heidgenstein make/makes a strong case against that approach. (I think Wittgenstein and Heidegger powerfully reveal one another at their best, something I learned from Lee Braver.)

I think it's in this sort of key, if you like, that philosophy, as distinct from science, considers 'the nature of being' - not as an attempt to arrive at a putative first cause in the sense that science would demand or require, through an analysis of the mass and scope of the Cosmos, but more of an intuitive insight. (That article, by the way, made much of Heidegger's indebtedness to taoism.) — Wayfarer

I like this. While some philosophy has sought first causes, etc., for me some of the best has just brought what we 'already know' into focus.

And I agree about Heidegger and Taoism. There's nothing new under the sun. That's an exaggeration, but the more I read the more I discover the continuity and repetition. I found Heidegger's basic thought in an early version (the first) of Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy. It was a one paragraph summary that set up his life's work. It was freaky. Since I've never seen it quoted, I'm guessing it just slid by many of the pros. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Lectures-History-Philosophy-Hegel/dp/0198249918

This is one reason I'm against intellectual hero worship. It's aboutthe ideas. I care what X 'really' meant to the degree that I believe that X was on to something real and important.

How far my efforts agree with those of other philosophers I will not decide. Indeed what I have here written makes no claim to novelty in points of detail; and therefore I give no sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what I have thought has already been thought before me by another. — Wittgenstein

To me that's a beautiful attitude, and that's one reason gods have many faces. Anonymity like TPF's returns us to an quasi-oral culture in which ideas can dominate.

If this work has a value it consists in two things. First that in it thoughts are expressed, and this value will be the greater the better the thoughts are expressed. The more the nail has been hit on the head.—Here I am conscious that I have fallen far short of the possible. Simply because my powers are insufficient to cope with the task.—May others come and do it better. — W

We don't experience the same world, there are a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. — leo

Of course we don't experience the world in exactly the same way. My point is that, for example, we all see objects in the environment in the same locations. Like we all see doorways where they are and so don't usually bump into walls. Even animals do. The possible examples of this are endless.

The only explanation for this other than that doorways etc. really are where we perceive them to be is that our minds, inckuding animal minds, are all connected in some indiscernible and unimaginable way. If the latter explanation is what you want to go for then I think you need to posit God or a universal mind or something along those lines. But then you also need to provide some reason why we should think that to be a more plausible explanation than the idea that things simply exist in their own right.

I think the call for the pitchforks might have more to do with a certain kind of temperament than whether one subscribes to realism or not.

The more natural response for an intellectually curious realist would be to investigate why the new person thinks differently to the others given that they're all interacting in the same world. — Andrew M

I think you are forgetting how familiar we all are with wishful thinking and its dangers. While it is sometimes geniuses who are thinking differently, perhaps that's the exception.

And then an impatience with solipsism or a denial of one shared reality might be driven by a curiosity about the real. Maybe certain positions just don't cohere, but some people need them emotionally and refuse to see this.

Personally I have mostly encountered intellectually incurious realists, who believe they are right and everyone else is wrong, who ridicule and dismiss those who believe differently as cranks, adepts of pseudoscience, believers of supernatural bullshit, brain diseased, delusional, too stupid to see why they are wrong. — leo

Is this even true of realists who like philosophy? Of course there are rude people around.

But the mind-independent framework has a lot of intractable and unsettling problems. In that framework we cannot explain how we can experience anything. We never see things as they are. Free will is very limited or inexistent. Why do these things bother us so much? Maybe because they are not an accurate representation of existence. These problems go away if we stop assuming a mind-independent reality. — leo

The problems as I see them are largely about awkward language. I don't think we can solve them. So maybe a sharp metaphysics of mind-independent reality (as opposed to noticing the structure of communication) will always be difficult.

We only never see things as they are if we insist that reality is hidden. You claim there is an apple in the cabinet. We both check and it's gone. Then we theorize about what happened. What can't we call that apple real? Must we call its molecules real instead? Why aren't those molecules just another aspect of the same apple?

With free will it's tricky. I don't even know what people mean by the term. I do think we are somewhat predictable.

For me the issue is that you imply that the theory of mind-independent reality could be wrong. Wrong in relation to what? If statements like that are or are not the case, then thats the slippery reality we should be thinking about.

Earnest philosophy presupposes a reality about which the philosophers can be right or wrong. Or am I wrong? And if I'm wrong, what am I wrong about if not reality?

Indeed. Personally I have mostly encountered intellectually incurious realists, who believe they are right and everyone else is wrong, who ridicule and dismiss those who believe differently as cranks, adepts of pseudoscience, believers of supernatural bullshit, brain diseased, delusional, too stupid to see why they are wrong. — leo

Philosophy as a blood sport. However there are plenty of considered realists around. In QM foundations, for example, the interpretations are almost exclusively realist, though they take on very different forms (see the table on p2).

I think you are forgetting how familiar we all are with wishful thinking and its dangers. While it is sometimes geniuses who are thinking differently, perhaps that's the exception. — g0d

Yes, certainly there's that. But I also think differences are often due to underlying assumptions that are difficult to recognize and appreciate the consequences of. That's Wayfarer's claim of naturalism's blind spot (in support of the article) and my claim of dualism (in criticism of the article), for example. And, whatever anyone's motives are, there remains the issue of the merit of the arguments.

If we stop assuming that our senses give us access to some reality "out there" independent of us then we don't have to deal with this conundrum.
— leo

But then we cannot explain how it is that we all experience the same world of things, given that our experience tells us that our minds are not directly connected at all. — Janus

I do want to address this, not by way of challenging you or saying that I think you're mistaken about it, but to entertain a possible perspective. As I have argued, I believe that the subject, or the mind, is one element of every perceived experience, in other words, that reality invariably has a subjective pole, aspect or element, which is not generally apparent; as Michel Bitbol says 'it knows but it is not known'. This is where I differ from realism which attributes to the objects of perception intrinsic reality presumably anchored by physics.

A Buddhist would say that 'subject and object' or 'mind and world' are co-arising; that these exist in dependence on one another, so, no world without mind, but conversely no mind without world (which is where Buddhism departs radically from European idealism). Whereas the realist invariably recoils at this notion, because we know that we are finite, temporal beings, while the world is of vast duration and size that extends far beyond us in both space and time. But again, I would counter that the notions of 'duration' and 'scale' both imply or require a mind, as they too have no intrinsic reality. I mean, even though it is empirically true that the world is much vaster than myself, the sense of scale which enables us to judge what is larger or smaller, sooner or later, nearer or further, seems to me to be not findable in the physical world. That is dependent upon a perspective.

Mystical, I suppose, but then Neils Bohr did say 'a scientist is just an atom's way of looking at itself'.

But we have to consider that the human mind in a biological sense, and also in terms of the kind of minds we have due to a common culture and language, means we do indeed perceive the same objects and in some sense the same world, even though 'the act of perception' is something that requires the mind. So this is how idealism defeats the argument of solipsism, that the idealist only knows his own mind. It is that we don't - we are social and cultural and linguistic beings, who share a set of definitions, associations - indeed this is a large part of what 'culture' means. So consciousness is in that sense a collective. It's obviously differentiated at the individual level, but much of that is due to the consequences of our individualist culture. ( I think this is where Wittgenstein's private language argument applies.)

But note that this also allows for the efficacy of science. As our conscious doings are indeed embedded in cultural and scientific and linguistic conventions, then it's not as if they're private or unique to us; they are 'intersubjectively validated'. But they can be that, without being intrinsically real or possessing inherent reality. Science is still perfectly sound, but it is not underwritten with reference to some purported 'absolute existent'. That's the crucial qualification.

Earnest philosophy presupposes a reality about which the philosophers can be right or wrong. Or am I wrong? And if I'm wrong, what am I wrong about if not reality? — g0d

Agree with that, but the "realist' picture is that the reality that we're right or wrong about is an objective matter. I mean, on the one hand, science continually tests its hypotheses and predictions against reality, by experiment and observation, and then changes its hypotheses when the facts don't fit (unlike politicians ;-) )

Aninteresting point to consider, again from Buddhist philosophy, although by no means unique to it. This is that amongst the many attributes of a Buddha is Yathabhutam, 'seeing things as they truly are'. I think there is a parallel concept in Stoic philosophy. Anyway, in traditional philosophy, this requires the attributes of sagacity and detachment, of being able to view things detached from any sense of self-interest, desire or aversion. Now, modern scientific method was also aiming at this, with the crucial distinction that the means by which it chose to arrive at this judgement were purely quantitative ( there's 'the reign of quantity'). And that's because of Galileo's emphasis on the superiority of dianoia (mathematical knowledge) which he derived from Plato (not forgetting that one of the key figures of the Italian renaissance was Ficino, who first translated Plato into Latin.) From thence comes the 'book of nature is written in mathematics'. Which is true as far as it goes - but what does it leave out? How to arrive at detached and sagacious judgements regarding anything that *can't* be described in terms of quantitative analysis?

Heidegger is probably the best example. Diogenes is another, and it was intentional in his case, because it was essential to his philosophy.

Sorry for the delay, but I try to respond to all thoughtful points.

The superman is fascinating. I think of 'Him' as a twisted Christ image. What I take away from Nietzsche is ultimately the presentation /celebration / defense of some classic 'masculine' virtues. Now I love Nietzsche, but I am skeptical about creating one's own values. How do we decide which values to create or keep if not by the values we already have? — g0d

That would be a great topic, and very incendiary: "Masculine virtues contrasted with feminine virtues". I propose g0d or @Janus make the OP. :smirk:

Creating your own values? Your interpretation is very reasonable, and imo, that's the best we can do with Nietzsche. Just for interest, I believe Leopold and Loeb interpreted Nietzsche this way, and tragically integrated it into their own lives.

My interpretation is a little different, but by no means is it better. You brought up the notion of inproving one's own character by 'seeing the world aright'. And in the context of life philosophy, in which objective truth is irrelevant and my life is preeminent, the creation of my own values (in the context of improving my character) is of the utmost priority.

Now, we both know that character (which categorically belongs to the ethical) is not something that can be quantified into scientific understanding, nor into objective knowledge. Character is something that is judged by others (society), yet, individual is where true character exists (or can be found), regardless of the opinion of others (see Diogenes). Only I know my true character in its totality, for everyone else they only possess snapshots of my character. . . I could go on.

Sticking to the point, I interpret Nietzsche as saying (in his own peculiar fashion): that each individual must discover/create the values in his own life and apply them in his living of life. Yet, there is no basis for prescribing correct character, neither through consensus nor scientific knowledge - that is called ideology, and it is a very frightening proposition.

I cannot rely on any ideological formula for correct character, and if I do, I am not determining my own character, I am mimicking what is prescribed by another. If I am to improve my own character, I must take hold of it and adopt the necessary values that will contribute to my personal betterment. The paradox is that I attempt all this as a blind man, with no clue as to what constitutes correctness of character or how it might be attained to. Yet, I am confident that the adopted values that define my character will prevail or fail in life - time will tell.

@g0d @Wayfarer

One more thing. If I divorce myself from societal judgement of my character, I become the sole remaining judge. And this is where the death of God concept becomes relevent. God was killed in the slave revolt, when the appeal to human truth and human value superseded and ultimately negated the individual as judge, or g0d, to himself.

This always makes me think of the Ubermensch as a parody of the Christ Pantocrator. :lol:

well if you were a child brought up by wolves, then your character would presumably reflect that. 'no [person] is an island' but only exists in and through a network of relationships; 'to be is to be related', said Krishnamurti. So the idea that one could exist in and for oneself alone is, I think, a fantasy.

As for N.'s 'death of God' - I think that really means the death of the ability to believe, as man has outgrown the myths and tropes which sustain the belief. But whether or not you believe in God, He is, by definition, not something literally subject to death. (Totally different topics however.)

(↪Merkwurdichliebe there's 'the reign of quantity'). — Wayfarer

Isn't it ironic that the even the most formulaic quantitative methodologies require a fundamental qualifier, or constant, for any further quantification?

Only to be measurable and countable, which covers an enormous range of things. It's that it lends mathematical certainty to any subject to which it can be applied.

So the idea that one could exist in and for oneself alone is, I think, a fantasy. — Wayfarer

I may not have worded it optimally, but I meant that "one can judge in and for one's self alone". The most pious of men are able to entirely divorce themselves from the judgement of other's and confine their judgment to themselves, and also to whatever God relation that self may entail.

which covers an enormous range of things — Wayfarer

But not all things, and probably not even the biggest or best things. :blush:

As for N.'s 'death of God' - I think that really means the death of the ability to believe, as man has outgrown the myths and tropes which sustain the belief. But whether or not you believe in God, He is, by definition, not something literally subject to death. (Totally different topics however.) — Wayfarer

That is one of my favorite interpretations. But can you agree that my interpretation holds water, at least a few drops? If nothing, my interpretation is more optimistic than yours, depending on what you reduce 'God' to?

I think Nietschze viewed God anthropomorphically (as opposed to panthiestically), as existing in the individual. And I find this to be an unwitting derivation from Kierkegaard's claim that "God is subject". In this sense, when a man loses faith in his own existence/life (say, by putting his faith in consensual speculation), he loses his personal relation to god. If the personal relation to God is drastically severed (and for Nietschze, everything was drastic), it is the same as if God were dead/killed.

the ability to believe — Wayfarer

What is belief? How is it?

Whatever the case, belief is most pertinent in relation to the living individual.

Add:

This interpretation can easily adapt the notions of 'will to power' and the 'Dionysian'.

That would be a great topic, and very incendiary: "Masculine virtues contrasted with feminine virtues". I propose g0d or Janus make the OP. — Merkwurdichliebe

Great topic, but it's almost impossible to get right in public conversation. It's not that such taboo things would be said. It's just tough to get the tone right. Anything shrill misses the point. A looseness is central here. It's an old idea that a man wins the heart of women by being funny. It's this cosmic laughter that really is important in Nietzsche than this or that thesis.

As a machine for the production of assertions, Nietzsche isn't that important. As a poet of cosmic laughter he is arguably the best in the tradition.

You brought up the notion of inproving one's own character by 'seeing the world aright'. — Merkwurdichliebe

Or actually seeing the world aright by improving one's character. Mask is lens.

And in the context of life philosophy, in which objective truth is irrelevant and my life is preeminent, the creation of my own values (in the context of improving my character) is of the utmost priority. — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed. I suppose I have to agree if creation of values is understood as self-creation. I guess I think the elements are pretty much given. The arrangement and proportion is on us. Whatever I say about existence, I also say about myself. A cosmic vision == an interpretation of human existence. For me it's just that most of this is outside of science. It's framing, metaphor. It's usually not testable but rather makes observation possible by disclosing a system of objects. So philosophy is ur-science, etc.

each individual must discover/create the values in his own life and apply them in his living of life. Yet, there is no basis for prescribing correct character, neither through consensus nor scientific knowledge - that is called ideology, and it is a very frightening proposition. — Merkwurdichliebe

That is a powerful/terrible idea. That's one way to look at Sartre as well. The idea is like : man has no essence but is self-created or self-creating like God. We are what we decide to (pretend to) be.

All of this was also in Hegel (he contains multitudes.) He viewed something like this position (held by hipsters in his day) as 'The Irony.' Stirner took this an expanded it into a long book. Nietzsche may have read Stirner (up for debate). For me it is half the truth. The business side of me embraces traditional virtues. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't beg. Etc. But the icing on this cake is a kind of ironic mysticism (cosmic or golden laughter, divine malice.)

Now if we stop at these absolutely empty forms which originate from the absoluteness of the abstract ego, nothing is treated in and for itself and as valuable in itself, but only as produced by the subjectivity of the ego. But in that case the ego can remain lord and master of everything, and in no sphere of morals, law, things human and divine, profane and sacred, is there anything that would not first have to be laid down by the ego, and that therefore could not equally well be destroyed by it. Consequently everything genuinely and independently real becomes only a show, not true and genuine on its own account or through itself, but a mere appearance due to the ego in whose power and caprice and at whose free disposal it remains. To admit or cancel it depends wholly on the pleasure of the ego, already absolute in itself simply as ego. Now thirdly, the ego is a living, active individual, and its life consists in making its individuality real in its own eyes and in those of others, in expressing itself, and bringing itself into appearance. For every man, by living, tries to realize himself and does realize himself.

Now in relation to beauty and art, this acquires the meaning of living as an artist and forming one’s life artistically. But on this principle, I live as an artist when all my action and my expression in general, in connection with any content whatever, remains for me a mere show and assumes a shape which is wholly in my power. In that case I am not really in earnest either with this content or, generally, with its expression and actualization. For genuine earnestness enters only by means of a substantial interest, something of intrinsic worth like truth, ethical life, etc., – by means of a content which counts as such for me as essential, so that I only become essential myself in my own eyes in so far as I have immersed myself in such a content and have brought myself into conformity with it in all my knowing and acting. When the ego that sets up and dissolves everything out of its own caprice is the artist, to whom no content of consciousness appears as absolute and independently real but only as a self-made and destructible show, such earnestness can find no place, since validity is ascribed only to the formalism of the ego.

True, in the eyes of others the appearance which I present to them may be regarded seriously, in that they take me to be really concerned with the matter in hand, but in that case they are simply deceived, poor limited creatures, without the faculty and ability to apprehend and reach the loftiness of my standpoint. Therefore this shows me that not everyone is so free (i.e. formally free)[52] as to see in everything which otherwise has value, dignity, and sanctity for mankind just a product of his own power of caprice, whereby he is at liberty either to grant validity to such things, to determine himself and fill his life by means of them, or the reverse. Moreover this virtuosity of an ironical artistic life apprehends itself as a divine creative genius for which anything and everything is only an unsubstantial creature, to which the creator, knowing himself to be disengaged and free from everything, is not bound, because he is just as able to destroy it as to create it. In that case, he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from his high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited, inasmuch as law, morals, etc., still count for them as fixed, essential, and obligatory. So then the individual, who lives in this way as an artist, does give himself relations to others: he lives with friends, mistresses, etc; but, by his being a genius, this relation to his own specific reality, his particular actions, as well as to what is absolute and universal, is at the same time null; his attitude to it all is ironical. — Hegel

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ae/introduction.htm#s7-3

Examine: he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from his high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited, inasmuch as law, morals, etc., still count for them as fixed, essential, and obligatory. This seems like a big part of the eros of philosophy. We want to strive against the fixed, essential, and obligatory...and be like gods above those still tangled in the contingent that they, poor dullards, still understand as necessary.

Consider 'language on holiday' or 'forgetfulness of being' or 'woo' or other intellectual sins. Where I think Nietzsche really nails it is his focus on the drives ('will to power'). Control is up. Transcendence is up. King of the mountain, etc.

I cannot rely on any ideological formula for correct character, and if I do, I am not determining my own character, I am mimicking what is prescribed by another. — Merkwurdichliebe

'I must create a System or be enslaved by another man's' (Blake)

I am 100% with you on this issue. If I had to pick the essence of philosophy, I might choose the denial of mediation. No priest or sage steps between me and existence/life/'God'/reality. I think of this as 'spiritual' masculinity. It's not about parts tucked away in briefs. It's about facing reality directly, or about wanting to do that. This is the anxiety of influence, the desire to be one's own father. Sartre would call it the impossible project that makes us so creepy. This gap between us and nature is what Feuerbach might call the essence of Christianity. Introducing 'man,' the monkey who wants to be god. And for that reason 'monkey' doesn't fit so well.

The paradox is that I attempt all this as a blind man, with no clue as to what constitutes correctness of character or how it might be attained to. — Merkwurdichliebe

But surely you do have some sense of virtue that guides your steps? I do understand a certain inescapable darkness. We carry a torch through the forest at night.

I have to drop a piece of my favorite Nietzsche quote (from The Antichrist). This is another take on the 'ironic mystic.' He's interpreting Christ.

But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse[8]—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory. — Nietzsche

The position he describes is 'behind' words. I'd say it's beyond piety and impiety. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. So what is this 'life'? Anything we can say about it is not it, since the concept of life is an attempt to climb out of the mud of mechanistic distinctions.

'Under' or 'over' what I might call a practical, worldly realism, the attitude above is something like the 'spiritual' for me. In this context, we can see how the quotation marks apply. If 'it' ain't beyond the words we are tempted to stick on it, then it ain't it.

Which is true as far as it goes - but what does it leave out? How to arrive at detached and sagacious judgements regarding anything that *can't* be described in terms of quantitative analysis? — Wayfarer

In Braver's A Thing of This World, he stresses how often detachment as a path to correct seeing comes up in what he calls realism. Bias is distortion. So I agree.

I suggest that the emotional appeal of science is a spiritual/philosophical. Those who reject science 'sin' against the holy ghost of unbiasedness/objectivity. To avoid bias, we have embraced an amoral staring. I think of Kinsey at IU. He was a violator of the sexual norms of his time, but he got away with it in the name of science. It was one norm versus the other.

As I think Nietzsche saw, it's the will-to-truth (a modification of Christianity) that leads to the death of God. Being biased (believing without justification) becomes the mortal sin. Christ puts on a white lab coat. Eventually, however, scientism itself is revealed as a superstition. Both Heidegger and Wittgenstein can be understood as anti-scientism. So 20th philosophy has largely been anti-scientism, with phenomenology as a truer and richer approach to knowing existence.

This is that amongst the many attributes of a Buddha is Yathabhutam, 'seeing things as they truly are'. I think there is a parallel concept in Stoic philosophy. Anyway, in traditional philosophy, this requires the attributes of sagacity and detachment, of being able to view things detached from any sense of self-interest, desire or aversion. Now, modern scientific method was also aiming at this, with the crucial distinction that the means by which it chose to arrive at this judgement were purely quantitative (↪Merkwurdichliebe there's 'the reign of quantity'). And that's because of Galileo's emphasis on the superiority of dianoia (mathematical knowledge) which he derived from Plato (not forgetting that one of the key figures of the Italian renaissance was Ficino, who first translated Plato into Latin.) — Wayfarer

How about primarily quantitative? As some of the Vienna Circle discovered, the metalanguage is (for instance) English. We have to understand what a measurement is, how to be a decent person in a community, etc., before we can dream of doing science. So science clearly depends on something that we largely take for granted, a kind of know-how and being-in-the-world. Because this foundation is not controversial, it's mostly ignored. We look at equations and equipment. We take paradigms as necessary rather than as contingent poetic acts that caught on.

Maybe the essence of science is that its hypotheses can be uncontroversially tested (at least ideally.) The hypotheses aredefinite enough to be falsified. Quantification is needed for this.

On a related note, I think intuition is the life of math. Logic is a hygiene. But math is more of a language than a 'dead' game with symbols. Of course we can intuitively use math to investigate dead games of symbols.

And, whatever anyone's motives are, there remains the issue of the merit of the arguments. — Andrew M

I agree.

It does seem that we can only argue within a common framework. So perhaps we have 'arguments' for frameworks that are (value-neutrally) rhetoric and then arguments proper within these 'irrationally' founded frameworks/paradigms.

The only explanation for this other than that doorways etc. really are where we perceive them to be is that our minds, including animal minds, are all connected in some indiscernible and unimaginable way. If the latter explanation is what you want to go for then I think you need to posit God or a universal mind or something along those lines. But then you also need to provide some reason why we should think that to be a more plausible explanation than the idea that things simply exist in their own right. — Janus

I gave some reasons in that post https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/298936 , you might have missed it.

Is this even true of realists who like philosophy? Of course there are rude people around. — g0d

Sure, although the philosophically-inclined ones are on average less rude. I'd say the rudest are the professional physicists, they base all their reasonings and career on the belief in an objective reality, they consider themselves to be uncovering and probing the fundamental constituents of reality, and there is some prestige that comes with being a theoretical physicist, so there is a lot of smugness that gets unleashed when they encounter people who dare question their most cherished beliefs and their position of importance. As someone who once considered having a career doing fundamental physics, I dealt with them for years, I guess it shows.

We only never see things as they are if we insist that reality is hidden. You claim there is an apple in the cabinet. We both check and it's gone. Then we theorize about what happened. What can't we call that apple real? Must we call its molecules real instead? Why aren't those molecules just another aspect of the same apple? — g0d

It's not so much that we insist reality is hidden, rather the widespread view is that reality is right there in front of us, but there is a lot that doesn't fit in that view. If we were all blind we wouldn't call real a lot of what we call real today. There are plenty of things that used to be considered real that aren't considered real anymore, and plenty of things that didn't use to be considered real that are now considered real. There is a lot that shows that what we call reality is socially constructed.

Now if you only focus on those things on which most people have agreed on for a long time, then you might get the idea that there is no need to think that reality is hidden, but when you start focusing on all the rest then what we call reality appears to have really shaky foundations.

If only you saw that apple, and no one else can find a reasonable explanation for its disappearance, then you might start being seen as delusional, as not being able to discern reality. Was the apple real? Well to you it was. To everyone else, you imagined it.

What we call imagination is socially constructed too, same as reality, if you see it and other people don't consider it real, then it's your imagination, but if later on they happen to find a plausible explanation to account for your observation then it becomes reality, and then some time later when the widespread scientific paradigm changes it might become imagination again. There is no unshakable foundation there, rather it's all temporary.

For me the issue is that you imply that the theory of mind-independent reality could be wrong. Wrong in relation to what? — g0d

Self-contradictory. But the self-contradiction doesn't exist out there in relation to another mind-independent reality, it is a mind seeing a self-contradiction.

I'd say the rudest are the professional physicists, they base all their reasonings and career on the belief in an objective reality, they consider themselves to be uncovering and probing the fundamental constituents of reality, — leo

I have been around that type myself. In my own adjacent field there is some scientism here and there.

I personally agree with your resistance to the notion that physics tells us what is 'really' there. The table is just as much the place where we have our dinner as it is molecules. Objects have many descriptions that suit different purposes.

If only you saw that apple, and no one else can find a reasonable explanation for its disappearance, then you might start being seen as delusional, as not being able to discern reality. Was the apple real? Well to you it was. To everyone else, you imagined it. — leo

I agree that consensus plays an important role. What we call 'madness' looks like a function of consensus. At one time homosexuality was viewed as an illness. These days a diagnosis of homophobia is more likely. I do think that it's hard to intelligibly deny that some kind of bodily contact is constant 'beneath' our interpretations of whether our feelings about that contact are virtuous.

One of Kant's critics summed up his system as 'persistent illusion is reality.' I think there's some truth in that. 'Reality' can usefully be described as the intersection of our private dreams. But any system like this tends to have problems. It's as if most metaphysical systems get this or that right but run aground on close investigation.

Self-contradictory. But the self-contradiction doesn't exist out there in relation to another mind-independent reality, it is a mind seeing a self-contradiction. — leo

I largely agree. If we take 'mind-independent' in a sharp, metaphysical sense. But I think the opposite position fails for the same reason. What is the 'mind' but experience of the 'world' or 'non-mind'? I think Mach made some good points on this. For me the mind versus non-mind distinction is problematic when we try to do 'math' with it. I think Wittgenstein and Heidegger are great at wrestling with these issues.

In ordinary life, I think we are mostly concerned with bias and wishful thinking. Reality is largely verified by the senses. In a murder trial, there's usually a sense that the defendant did it or did not do it. As we move into metaphysical psychology, thinks get murky. We are tempted to call all reality as we know it a 'dream' which is a function of some unknowable X. We get lost on a Mobius strip. The world is in the brain and yet the brain is in the world.

I suspect that we are up against some kind of glitch in our cognition on this issue. I also think that the 'world' or 'reality' is more like an a priori structure of communication than an object that can be talked about.

If 'mind-independent reality' is a contradiction, then that only matters if it's a contradiction for us. What is it that is 'for us' and 'not just me' that grounds intelligible conversation? You and I have to share a language and a sense of logic to even discuss the issue. So being in language together is (I argue) being in a 'world' together. But this 'world' is not some object. It's the 'wherein' of all objects, including conceptions of the world that ignore the structure I'm trying to point out.

Mask is lens. — g0d

Good point. "Character" and "seeing aright" do seem to be quite inseparable.

Thanks for quoting with such surgical precision. Not my idea, but I claim that particular metaphor.

I'm digging A Thing of This World at the moment. By connecting all the great continentals since Kant, it really brings out the theory of the mask/lens and the (futile?) attempt to get beyond the lens metaphor.

There are plenty of things that used to be considered real that aren't considered real anymore, and plenty of things that didn't use to be considered real that are now considered real. There is a lot that shows that what we call reality is socially constructed. — leo

I do agree that what we often call 'reality' is socially constructed. By agreeing, I'm saying that 'in fact' (in reality) what we call 'reality' is a function of power, etc., to some degree.

In the quote above, you open with There are. What is in this 'are'? Heidegger talks about this stuff (I know I'm not original), but the issue itself fascinates me apart from any particular lingo. 'Reality is socially constructed' seems to want to tell me about reality, about 'real' reality.

I understand anti-realism in terms of the lens metaphor and the desire to abandon it. We see through a cultural lens, a personal lens. Deeper than either is the biological lens, our sense organs and nervous system.

What I'm getting at may be a feature of this biological lens. It's as if we can't coherently deny reality or at least some virtual other. Alone of a deserted island I understand my words as potentially intelligible to others, even if they aren't there. Maybe this is switched on as we learn language.

"Masculine virtues versus feminine virtues"? Thanks for thinking of me but starting a thread on that sounds too complicated and dangerous, and I'm a simpleton and a coward, and besides I don't have much time right now... :joke: :rofl: :wink: :halo: :groan:

I gave some reasons in that post https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/298936 , you might have missed it. — leo

That is the post my post you are responding is a response to, and I already read it and there is nothing in there that addresses the question I raised.

But we have to consider that the human mind in a biological sense, and also in terms of the kind of minds we have due to a common culture and language, means we do indeed perceive the same objects and in some sense the same world, even though 'the act of perception' is something that requires the mind. — Wayfarer

This also sidesteps and fails to address it.

I can't see any value in responding to either of you further until you make a genuine attempt to address the point at issue.