Science in the broad sense. In physics it's still iffy as to what is real, I don't regard the social science definition much since they can't really agree on anything. I guess I mean repeatable and predictable which is why I don't count dreams or hallucinations as real because they aren't.

He seems like that "I have to make my degree matter somehow" philosopher. All his stuff when I questioned him was gated behind payment and he wouldn't clarify anything. As I mentioned before he is shooting himself in the foot.

He tries to say that ethics doesn't need an external reality in order to be applied, at which point I couldn't take him seriously anymore.

It seems most plausible that there is 'something', not dependent upon us at all, that appears to us as a world of entities and events. It also seems most plausible that our "subjective access" to that 'something' also finds its origin in that 'something'. And we do seem to have reliable access to, and knowledge of, that something on account of its appearance to us, even though we cannot say 'what it is in itself' because anything we say cannot be a saying of the 'in itself', for pretty obvious logical reasons.

REminds me a bit about berkely and idealism: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3-euw1-ap-pe-ws4-cws-documents.ri-prod/9781138690394/idealism_objections.docx#:~:text=Idealism%20leads%20to%20solipsism,exists%20is%20my%20own%20experience.

But in Berkeley's case it leads to solipsism as idealism often does.

Why tell this to anyone? — Darkneos

To bang all the hipster chicks.

‘Some people say that the whole world is an illusion. If that is true, I definitely overpaid for my carpet’ ~ Woody Allen.

It's just skepticism doing what it does best - cast doubt on everything whenever and wherever possible. The fact is, and that's the gist of the skepticism, we don't know if anything's real or not. Truth be told, as someone wrote a couple of months ago on the forum, we can't even trust out own minds and that's scraping the bottom of this depressing skeptical rabbit hole I suppose. :sad:

So then why bother? What is the point of questioning everything if you eventually have to settle on axioms? I mean even solipsism has to take it's base points on faith.

Also Gabriel doesn't seem all there as a philosopher according to reviews of his books:

"It is a title that catches the eye but sadly the contents do not live up to the expectations that the title arouses. Most non-philosophical readers will assume that 'The world' means planet Earth or maybe just the whole of humanity. They are unlikely to be aware that Gabriel is using 'The world' to mean not just the entire physical universe but rather everything that exists – whether physical or not. In this sense, unicorns living on the far side of the moon (the author's own example) are part of 'The world' insofar as he has imagined them and therefore they exist – at least in his imagination. So the other part of the title is also being used in a way that is at best 'unusual' – since we don't normally accept that unicorns inhabit the far side of the moon – at least not without considerable qualification.

So once we assume that 'The world' means 'everything that exists – in all senses of exist' – then we are ready for Gabriel's not terribly exciting claim that this concept does not – because it cannot – exist. This is not to say that nothing exists – which would be quite a remarkable claim – though philosophers in the past have claimed it (but then philosophers in the past have claimed all sorts of things – as some do in the present!). The concept 'everything that exists' is paradoxical and it is its paradoxical nature which entails that it cannot exist. It is self-contradictory. Gabriel divides everything up into 'object domains'. It is easier – and just as accurate - to think of these as sets – the set of all unicorns, the set of all teaspoons, etc. Now clearly there can be some sets which are found entirely or partially inside other sets – 'unicorns' inside 'mythical creatures' and 'teaspoons' partially inside 'silver utensils' (since some teaspoons are made of steel or plastic). But then let's imagine the set of all sets – the set in which all sets are to be found – the granddaddy set. Then we get the big question – 'Is the set of all sets a member of itself?' Usually known as 'Russell's Paradox' this question is paradoxical for the following reasons. Clearly if it is not a member of itself then the set of all sets is deficient – it lacks one of its members – namely itself. But if it is a member of itself then it seems to exist in two places at once – inside itself and also itself. And even sets can't be in two places at once. Or as Gabriel expresses it, “The world is not found in the world” [P.74]. So the concept of 'the set of all sets' is incoherent – and in this sense, and only this sense, the world does not exist. But even in Gabriel's strained notion of 'The world' it doesn't follow that just because it doesn't exist that therefore, “One cannot think about the world” [P.79]. To which one can only respond, “Oh yes I can!”. Non-existence or even downright self-contradiction does not prevent me from thinking about it. I could spend the whole afternoon thinking about square circles if I chose."


https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/0745687571/ref=acr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar

So then why bother? What is the point of questioning everything if you eventually have to settle on axioms? I mean even solipsism has to take it's base points on faith. — Darkneos

We wouldn't have known that one choice that's available to us is we "...eventually have to settle for axioms..." if the skeptics hadn't asked the question in the first place. Of course there are the other two options in Munchhausen's trilemma viz. circularity and infinite regress but what usually happens is we begin our reasoning from a set of axioms. I believe this is the least worst option we have.

I still restate my question. IF everything is ultimately based on a set of axioms that we cannot prove and have to take it on faith then what exactly is the point of performing philosophy? How can we call anything a pursuit of truth?

I still restate my question. IF everything is ultimately based on a set of axioms that we cannot prove and have to take it on faith then what exactly is the point of performing philosophy? How can we call anything a pursuit of truth? — Darkneos

You wouldn't have known this if you hadn't done philosophy. Oddly, the truth is that there's no truth or something like that. Amazing, no? Imagine getting bent out shape by someone objecting to what you hold as truths and also imagine someone else being utterly frustrated by you objecting to the truths they hold dear. All for nothing. :smile: Philosophy!

It just seems.....weird to me that some folks would do that? I mean doesn't that amount to shooting yourself in the foot more or less? Who are you talking to then? Why charge for your courses? Why tell this to anyone? — Darkneos

If you really want to know why Markus Gabriel says that the world does not exist, you should read his book, Why the World Does Not Exist, or one of the interviews in which he summarizes the argument, like this one.

Very roughly, he argues that existence applies locally and within domains, i.e., to each object against its background, not to some posited all-encompassing container object that itself has no background or domain.

Anyone thinking that...

It's just skepticism doing what it does best — TheMadFool

...is incorrect.

Anyone thinking that...

It's just skepticism doing what it does best
— TheMadFool

...is incorrect. — jamalrob

So, Descartes is incorrect?

I have no idea how you got that from what I said.

I have no idea how you got that from what I said. — jamalrob

Cartesian skepticism? The world could be an illusion i.e. it may not exist???

Just work on your reading comprehension please.

Just work on your reading comprehension please. — jamalrob

Cartesian skepticism? The world could be an illusion i.e. it may not exist??? — TheMadFool

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/488577

:rofl: That link leads us back to your post. I'll read Markus Gabriel when I have the time. Thanks. His argument for why the world may not exist must be of a different stripe than that from skepticism but you surely can't deny the latter (skepticism)leads to the same conclusion which makes me wonder why Markus Gabriel went through the trouble of putting old wine in a new bottle.

I suggest reading that interview to get an idea of what he's saying.

Here's a quote from it:

Skepticism, the position or worry that we cannot really ever know anything, is completely unjustified... — MG

http://www.fourbythreemagazine.com/issue/world/markus-gabriel-interview

:up: :ok:

I'm curious though. How does Markus Gabriel tackle the Munchhausen trilemma for he must if he's to make his case that "Sekpticism...is completely unjustified"? :chin:

I'm not sure. Some kind of coherentism, I suppose.

I'm not sure. Some kind of coherentism, I suppose. — jamalrob

:ok: I wonder what Markus Gabriel has up his sleeve.

Up his sleeve he has indefinitely many fields of sense, I believe.

Parlor game - what is the etymology of 'world'?

OK I'll provide the post that I learned it from:

I mentioned in last month’s post here that our familiar term “world” is a rounded-off version of the Old English weorold, “man-old,” the time or age of human beings. That bit of etymology conceals more than one important insight. As I noted last month, it reminds us that this thing we call “the world” isn’t something wholly outside ourselves, something we experience in a detached and objective way. It’s something we create moment by moment in our minds, by piecing together the jumble of unconnected glimpses our senses give us—and we do the piecing according to a plan that’s partly given us by our biology, partly given us by our culture, and partly a function of our individual life experience.

That point is astonishingly easy to forget. I’ve long since lost track of the number of times I’ve watched distinguished scientists admit with one breath that the things we experience around us aren’t real—they’re just representations constructed by our sense organs and brains, reacting to an unimaginable reality of probability waves in four-dimensional space-time—and then go on with the very next breath to forget all that, and act as though matter, energy, space, time, and physical objects exactly as we perceive them are real in the most pigheadedly literal sort of objective sense, as though the human mind has nothing to do with any of them except as a detached observer. What’s more, many of those same scientists proceed to make sweeping claims about what human beings can and can’t know and do, in blithe disregard of the fact that these very claims depend on the same notion of the objective reality of the world of experience that they’ve just disproved. — John Michael Greer

The Clenched Fist of Reason

:up:

Cool article. Do you have any similar references for why Gabriel describes these domains as "fields of sense" - what is it that aligns the characaterisation of these domains with the sensory/the meaningful if:

New Realism consists in the claim that there are objects and fields of sense, which have a full-blown realist shape and others, for which this does not hold without either of those enjoying any kind of metaphysical or overall explanatory primacy.

no domains are given metaphysical or explanatory primacy? Aligning this general ontological construct with the category of sense seems to be a move which gives the concept of sense an explanatory and metaphysical primacy.

Other than a few similar interviews, I've read the book, Why the World Does Not Exist, which uses the concept first laid out in Fields of Sense: A New Realist Ontology, which I haven't read.

In any case I'd need a refresher to discuss it; maybe I'll look at it again. (It could make a nice reading group too, especially in the way it might attract both analytics and continentals).