I feel like Thomas Nagel said something along these lines..but that could be a false connection. Is it bad that most evolutionary biologists and others (including my self to an extent) already thought along these lines way before Brassier said it with more words and more references to French philosophers? — schopenhauer1
Can you give an example of how we can make sense of these notions in more fundamental metaphysical terms (e.g. in materialist terms)? — schopenhauer1
his wonderful discussion of Stove's Gem, which he uses not so much to establish realism, but - in keeping with the ground-clearing mode of the rest of the paper - to disqualify approaches which aim to diffuse realism as an issue from the get-go. Here, both Berkeley and Fitche are taken as targets, with Meillassoux also critiqued for buying too easily into the Gem. Again, it's not a 'positive' argument that Brassier is advancing here, but a negative one - or more precisely, an attempt to negate a negative (against the idea that thought cannot track the real). — StreetlightX
By the principles premised, we are not deprived of any one thing in Nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force...[W]e have shewn what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras, or ideas of our own framing. — Berkeley
By the principles premised, we are not deprived of any one thing in Nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force...[W]e have shewn what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras, or ideas of our own framing. — Berkeley
By the principles premised, we are not deprived of any one thing in Nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force...[W]e have shewn what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras, or ideas of our own framing. — Berkeley
Indeed. Ironically, this cuts down Berkeley's own argument. Since "real(i.e. existing)" or "not real (i.e not existing), has nothing to do with whether an object is experiential (i.e. thought, experienced) or non-experiential (i.e. unperceived, unthought, unknown), the presence of experience isn't necessary for any object. Berkley is trapped in the same illusion as those he criticises. He treats the "real" as if it is a matter of being experiential as opposed to non-experimental. In his efforts to recognise how objects are thought of and experienced, even the "unknown" or "unperceived" ones, he confuses thinking about and experiencing objects for their existence.Berkeley is pointing out that reality is something that in everyday terms we define using means besides experience-independence, and thus claiming that objects' being experiential, as opposed to non-experiential, has nothing to do with whether they are 'real' or not — The Great Whatever
I think it's fair to say that Berkeley's 'master argument' is, to put it very simply, based on the tautologous idea that what can be conceived must be itself a conception. — John
Congruent with Berkeley's complaint, there has never been an instance of an object thought of without the someone thinking about the object, but... this does not amount to the absence of unexperienced objects. — TheWillowOfDarkness
In thinking about unexperienced objects, we have the concept of an object which is not experienced. They are not inconceivable at all. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Just because I'm thinking about it now doesn't mean the object can't be known or unexperienced at some other time. — TheWillowOfDarkness
I always have it in experience. Including the times I conceive of objects which aren't being experienced. — TheWillowOfDarkness
OK, but if an object is a "bundle of ideas" then it is a bundle of conceptions; i.e. it is conceptual. That doesn't change the substance of the argument. — John
The experience, indeed, doesn't exist when unexperienced. The dairy is not unexperienced until the states of experience of it cease. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Why would someone ever suggest they could conceive of an unexperienced object — TheWillowOfDarkness
without them conceiving of something?
But you can't conceive of an object no one is conceiving of. — The Great Whatever
Can a painter ever paint someone alone?
What do you mean by, 'conceived ex hypothesi?' Do you mean that, when we imagine an object no one is experiencing, that object is actually experienced, but not experienced ex hypothesi? Is this what the realist is interested in? — The Great Whatever
Of course. For example, I am male. Therefore, if we don't make a distinction between conception simpliciter and conception ex hypothesi, then I can't conceive of something that isn't being imagined by a male. Thus, there are no objects that are not conceived of by males. — Pneumenon
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