you need to define the object in terms of the subject, and this is because the properties of the object, without question, are contingent upon the brain. You must also understand that unicorns exist as images inside the mind, but do not exist in the world, so you cannot say that they absolutely do not exist, but exist as objects of imagination only. They thus have existence in some sense.
you're not acknowledging the fact that ideas exist as objects of memory.
I do not define the object in terms of the subject, for the properties of the unicorn are not dependent upon the brain. — Alvin Capello
Unicorns would still be horned horses, even if no humans had ever existed — Alvin Capello
And to say that unicorns exist as images in the mind is to make a common mistake. Surely ideas of unicorns exist in the mind, but unicorns themselves do not. — Alvin Capello
A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). — Alvin Capello
A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). — Alvin Capello
What I want to claim is that unicorns do not exist anywhere, and thus don't have existence in any sense. — Alvin Capello
I accept this point, but a nonexistent object and the idea of a nonexistent object are very different things. The idea of a nonexistent object exists in the mind, but the nonexistent object that it is an idea of does not. — Alvin Capello
You're presupposing that the subject, in its entirety, is contingent upon the brain. In idealism, it isn't. In materialism, it is (this is called reductionism).
the properties of the object, without question, are contingent upon the brain
If they have the same logical form, how can they be "very different?"
The idea of a nonexistent (i.e. non-actualized) exists in mind, but you cannot prove that this object is not actualized somewhere else, and an idea came from another mind on another planet who perceived it, through a collective unconscious, and into a human mind. This a huge flaw in your argument. you would first have to prove that this is not possible as opposed to take it as a presupposition.
It's like saying that the computer code for the existence of a unicorn in a video game is "very different" from the unicorn in the game relative to the perspective of one of the characters.
I’m not claiming that the mystical experience doesn’t exist, but if you claim that it overrides any arguments, then you are no longer doing philosophy. — Alvin Capello
Wait, you are writing the next Critique of Pure Reason and you don't even believe the world is real? Are you saying there is a greater reality in comparison to which this one we live in doesn t exist? Is this God or a Form? — Gregory
Boo! God clearly doesn't exist. — Gregory
Haven't you seen a Christmas tree? — Gregory
People say they didn't feel like a person till their teens. — Gregory
I felt like a full person with free will and reason at age 3. — Gregory
The only thing towards which this world doesnt exist Is Pure nothingness — Gregory
You become one with absolute being, then you earn the title of "philosopher." until then, you are merely fumbling around the outskirts of knowledge because the existence of the absolute is still a presupposition for you and not a direct experience.
Not at all. Philosophy is not a secret cult that you need to become initiated into. It is for everyone. Anyone who loves wisdom, and who is willing to critically analyze their own presuppositions and to rationally argue for their beliefs is a philosopher. — Alvin Capello
A blank canvas of only one color is the foundation of patterns. — Gregory
Something comes from nothing. — Gregory
That's why we die says Heidegger. — Gregory
We were always at home until we existed and what was not is what it is — Gregory
It would seem to me that we have direct access to the "representation" itself, which is a real thing that has causal power. The "representation" would be an effect of prior causes. So, in effect, we have direct access to one effect of reality - our own mind - and we determine what the world is like by determining the causes of the effect. We can only get at the world through the effect of the mind. The mind is a real thing with causal power.Kant is interesting because because although we can only know the world through our representations of it, Kant, in all his rigour, says that the same applies to the self: self-knowledge is not exempt from representation and the self has no special status in this regard: "I, as intelligence and a thinking subject, know myself as an object that is thought, insofar as I am given to myself … like other phenomena, only as I appear to myself … I therefore have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself." Elsewhere: "Of this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of the thoughts = X … This I or He or It … is known only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and of it, apart from them, we cannot have any concept whatsoever".
This is the basis of what alot of commentators have referred to as the Kantian 'split subject': a subject at once both an object like any other and that which is a condition of any knowledge whatsoever. In the words of Markus Gabriel: "We have no grasp of that which constitutes our world even though it is we who perform said constitution. The uncanny stranger begins to pervade the sphere of the subject, threatening its identity from within. Kant is thus one of the first to become aware of the intimidating possibility of total semantic schizophrenia inherent in the anonymous transcendental subjectivity as such". The possibility of madness is one of the marks of the real in the subject - in thought - and not merely 'beyond it'. Kant himself vacillates on this point and it causes all sorts of issues, but there's definitely a way to read Kant as opening the issue of 'subject as object' in a way that's worth pursuing. — StreetlightX
It seems to me that unicorns do exist. They exist as ideas, not as organisms. Ideas have just as much causal power as an organism. The idea (or more precisely, the imagining) of a unicorn can cause you to talk about, write about, draw a picture of it, - leave a "physical" mark on the world. How does a "mental" idea cause "physical" effects, if both the idea and the paper and ink are of completely different substances?I do not define the object in terms of the subject, for the properties of the unicorn are not dependent upon the brain. Unicorns would still be horned horses, even if no humans had ever existed. And to say that unicorns exist as images in the mind is to make a common mistake. Surely ideas of unicorns exist in the mind, but unicorns themselves do not. A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are two very different things, so conflating them is a mistake (indeed, I think this is one of the central errors of idealism). What I want to claim is that unicorns do not exist anywhere, and thus don't have existence in any sense. — Alvin Capello
It seems to me that unicorns do exist. They exist as ideas, not as organisms.
To say that something exists means that it has causal power. To say that it doesn't exist means that it doesn't have causal power.
A thought: idealism, or the role of the mental in constructing (our?) reality, seems inevitable once you spend enough time philosophizing.
On the other hand, that mind is intrinsic and underlies everything, is exactly what creatures with minds would say. Especially after they spend a lot of time thinking.
"I am the center of the universe, and everything else moves around me." - how am I to disprove this to myself? — Pneumenon
You said that they are "radically different". I would agree, but probably not in the way that you meant. They are radically different because one exists and the other doesn't.A unicorn and the idea of a unicorn are radically different kinds of objects. For one thing, a unicorn is a horned horse, while the idea of a unicorn is not a horned horse (rather, it represents a horned horse). So too, the idea of a unicorn exists in the mind, while a unicorn itself does not. — Alvin Capello
Now you're confusing the idea of causation with the process of causation. You seem to have understood the difference between an organism and the idea of an organism, but here you regressed into confusing the process of causation with the idea of causation (Frodo causing the One Ring to be destroyed).I understand this view, but I don't accept it. The reason why is because many nonexistent objects have causal powers. For instance, Frodo Baggins caused the One Ring to be destroyed by casting it into the fires of Mount Doom, but Frodo doesn't exist. — Alvin Capello
It's not just uninformative. It's circular. If this is how you define, "existence" then I don't understand your use of "existence" any better than when you first used the word.On my view, to say that something exists is just to say that it has the property of existence; while to say that it doesn't exist is just to say that it lacks the property of existence. This might sound somewhat uninformative, but in my view existence is a simple property, and thus cannot be analyzed into something more basic. — Alvin Capello
That would be the naive realist position. For the indirect realist, the things that appear in our minds are about things that are not in our minds.Properly stated, as a realist, it would be a claim one's imagination was in one's mind. In other words, just a recognition one's imagining are states of their experience.
The realist postion is things which do appear in our minds are not our minds. If we cannot imagine anything outside our minds, there is no consequence of rendering everything mental. — TheWillowOfDarkness
For an idea of a unicorn to "represent" a horned horse, which also doesn't "exist", then "horned horse" is just another idea. So, your idea, "unicorn" would represent another idea, "horned horse".
What caused the idea of "unicorn" to exist in your mind? Probably someone else communicating that idea to you. How did "unicorn" come to exist in the first mind that imagined it if there are no unicorn organisms for them to observe?
Now you're confusing the idea of causation with the process of causation. You seem to have understood the difference between an organism and the idea of an organism, but here you regressed into confusing the process of causation with the idea of causation (Frodo causing the One Ring to be destroyed).
It's not just uninformative. It's circular. If this is how you define, "existence" then I don't understand your use of "existence" any better than when you first used the word.
"I am the center of the universe, and everything else moves around me." - how am I to disprove this to myself? — Pneumenon
:up:↪StreetlightX
Good observation.
Kant is creating problems with his solutions, not solving problems with his creations. — Valentinus
:clap:The case against idealism has never turned upon finding something that is not of the mind; it turns instead on showing how the mind is itself 'non-ideal', how the mind itself already belongs to an outside: the mind as an involution of the outside, a fold in a fabric. It is the nature of mind itself on which the fate of idealism hangs: as origin as or product? Thought itself is a secrection, already impersonal, socialized, involuntary, alien. Thought as a monument or index of what is not thought. — StreetlightX
:wink: i.e. suffering ...The possibility of madness is one of the marks of the real in the subject - in thought - and not merely 'beyond it'. — StreetlightX
E.g. à la Witty's "private language argument", etc.I suggest replacing 'mental' with 'social.' — jjAmEs
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