What are the objections against the view that a lot of different realities can co-exist? Especially in the science driven global culture of today there seems to be a lot of resistence. That is at least what I experience. — Prishon

Generally, it is the responsibility of the person who starts a discussion to provide their own thoughts in the opening post. It's just common courtesy.

My thoughts - If you read many of my posts, this is a refrain you will hear over and over. There is only one world. Just look around. These "different realities" you refer to are just different ways of looking at that world. They are metaphysical systems. Metaphysical systems are not right or wrong, they are more or less useful in a particular situation. I have my own particular ways of looking at things. They are like tools. When I have to deal with something, I can rummage around in my tool box and pull out the one that will work best.

Welcome to the forum.

The point is that you already refer to a world. As if there is just one possible one. That is, the material world. That's why I refered to science. But the Dreamtime of the Aboriginals is as real as quarks and leptons for me as a particle physicist.

The point is that you already refer to a world. As if there is just one possible one. That is, the material world. — Prishon

You’ll also notice that everything about this ‘same’ world he refers to is going to be idiosyncratic to his perspective, such that he will have to use the
blind men and elephant metaphor to explain how different perspectives can all coalesce around a same world. Suggesting that there are as many different elephants as there are perspectives is threatening to an empirical bent.

are — Joshs

I think I feel what you mean. But I never heard of the blind man and the elephant metaphor. What does it entail?

Each man probes a different part of the elephant’s body and comes up with his own interpretation of what the elephant looks like.

comes — Joshs

Ah yes! That's exactly what I mean. The feet are material, the head the gods. The tail the magic, etc. It seems more humane. For everyone a part that fits. Not one and only part. ☺

It seems to me that many people already are ontological pluralists. Sure, you can get the odd person who thinks that everything ultimately reduces to particles and the laws of nature, but that tells you very little.

We can stress some aspects of ontology, say, we can argue that we should think of the world in terms of events instead of on things. Or we can stress the mind dependence or mind independence of certain aspects of the world. These types of arguments would apply to all levels.

But there isn't much that can be said that applies to everything in the world. So we tend to be ontological pluralists by default.

But there isn't much that can be said that applies to everything in the world. So we tend to be ontological pluralists by default — Manuel

Unless you’re a Continental philosopher, in which case everything comes down to ‘Will to Power’ or ‘ Dasein’ or ‘difference’ or ‘ transcendental subjectivity’. I think that even those considering themselves ontological pluralists make use of implicit unifying presuppositions, even as they cannot articulate them explicitly.

transcendental subjectivity’ — Joshs

One of Husserl's? I don't properly understand it. Quick definition?

transcendental subjectivity’
— Joshs

One of Husserl's? I don't properly understand it. Quick definition? — Tom Storm

Yep. Transcendental subjectivity is what is left after one has performed a thoroughgoing reduction of everyday experience. One could perform a partial reduction in order to reveal the intentional acts underlying and making possible psychological processes like perception and cognition. Brentano, the Gestalt psychologists and today’s cognitive science all make use of such an intentional approach. But they don’t perform a complete reduction, because they found their intentional psychologies on a material stratum. The transcendental move makes empirical naturalism secondary and derived from the more primordial stratum of intentional constitution. One would have to imagine a generating process that is not an object in the world , and yet not a solipsistic ideality.

It’s a bizarre approach for those of us used to starting with the furniture of the universe and constructing human beings out of those building blocks.

28mReplyOptions — Joshs

"Unless you’re a Continental philosopher, in which case everything comes down to ‘Will to Power’ or ‘ Dasein’ or ‘difference’ or ‘ transcendental subjectivity’."

In that case only one small part of the total elephant is pointed to. To be thought the blood flowing through the whole elephant, regarding the outside as not- important. But it is still there. That is the all encompassing reality of an kntological pluralist. He can freely change from one reality to another. Which can be an advantage or a disadvantage.

Thanks Joshs. I'm making my way through some of the principles of phenomenology and I have to say much of it resonates. But I'm in the shallow end of the pool... Is there an on line reference, a dictionary of key terms or something similar?

I think that this is the goal of philosophy, if not one important one, to try and unify things. The question is if we're actually doing this by evoking such terms or concepts.

It's hard to say.

approach — Joshs

It’s a bizarre approach for those of us used to starting with the furniture of the universe and constructing human beings out of those building blocks

Are there people who built other people from building blocks of the universe?

That's more like Heidegger's version (he traded on his Husserl connection so that most people are too confused to tell them apart). Some flaws in Husserl's own version needed attending to and Walter Hopp in Phenomenology, a contemporary approach pubd Routledge 2020 covers the scheme systematically and the comments already made by others to make it hang together better. In particular Husserl identified three successive phases in perception including valuing (which ties in with Nietzsche's call) which is separate from judgment.

Husserl maintained you can't genuinely perform "reductions" or "brackettings" (which just means hold two or more things in your mind alongside each other) beyond what "is" into the fact of "is" itself. This strikes me as similar to those people who say being is not a predicate, and Duns Scotus who warned against making analogy of being too much like equivocity and not univocity.

(I work in intersecting spectrums and continuums.)

Heidegger reifies a thing he calls Being itself, which causes all sorts of personality and societal disturbances.

Ontological pluralism (not relativity) is sound because each thing has its own identity. Epicurus urges us not to weaponise the big picture against the atoms so as to "pulverise" them. Then, any possible worlds is a mathematical construct, and inference tells us which one is real (the rest of the calculations are a good exercise).

We were all taught not to use inference, hence widespread weak thinking, sadly.

To my mind the meaning in what is, is "Is". Things that are, are telling us that they are, and that they are what they are. This is the answer to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question. (There must have been an existence wave or something. Popper's rather nice word is "propensity". I call it Sam Johnson's Toe.) Why questions are mostly how questions, and how questions are mostly what questions. To my mind, this must be the basic premise of logic.

The fabric (weave, which is like wave, perhaps Epicurus' shimmering) of the universe is analogies, all the way down. After all, particles that have no "mass" are themselves made up from some that do. If you look closely enough, the question of "location" of submicroscopic fragments becomes complex (not contradictory). This is obviously firm enough to stand on, eat, read, stretch our minds, help each other know more, build bridges, fly planes.

Isaac Newton's "non fingo" was about acceptance of his own findings and of our common findings, and not dumbing them down. Husserl is streets ahead of those miserygutses who moan that you and I are figments of their diseased imagination.

When one adds (to Husserl's scheme) the semiotics of Peirce (reading the language of nature as well as culture) and those forms of hermeneutics that resemble it (i.e not Heidegger's), not forgetting quasi-indexicality in holy texts (why gods are reported to say what they are saying and who it was as if to) and one gets a toolkit for sanity. Everything makes proportionate sense (analogy means using partial metaphor as aid to proportionate sense). (Peirce commentaries and Barthes make illuminating combined reading.)

Various other schemes called "phenomenology" don't have the breadth of coverage hence too much gets dumbed down.

In my childhood I thought every child knew that there is what is "out there" and what is "in here" in my head at the same time. It's not necessary for every one of us to rush headlong into the communal mental breakdown. What is real sends us its message that it is real as well as us whom the message is coming to: anthropic, not solipsistic, not antihumanising. We're here so that we can talk about what's here also.

I'm a beginner and I've not yet found out whether scholars have posited "ontological relativity" (my search engine is buzzing as it is).

After all, particles that have no "mass" are themselves made up from some that do — Fine Doubter

What do you mean?

I'm a beginner and I've not yet found out whether scholars have posited "ontological relativity" (my search engine is buzzing as it is). — Fine Doubter

Thats my own invention...

To answer your question, could you define what you mean by a reality? An example of at least two types that fit your definition would be nice.

To answer your question, could you define what you mean by a reality? An example of at least two types that fit your definition would be nice — Philosophim

There is the reality of physics, like the rishons, quantum fields thereof, played out on the underground of a (quantized) curved developing spacetime (itself influenced by these fields).

There is the reality of the Greek gods, to be supplanted by the horrible one-eyed monstergod with which Xenophanes had an unlucky encounter.

There is the reality of the Aboriginal dreamtime and their reality of a Natural world very different from the scientific one.

There is the reality of my girlfriend. I wont go into that one...

I appreciate the examples, but you still need to provide a definition so that we can have a foundation of conversation to stand on. Why are they separate realities? What makes a reality, a reality?

Definition of the physics reality:

-There exist 2 basic massless quantum fields interacting by 7 gauge fields. Their mass/energy curves 4d spacetime. The particles themselves are 2d forms of magic stuff. Curled up to Planck scale. Big bangs take place on a 5d negatively curved static substratum. A 5d torus with cut open outermost outside, streching out to infinity with a Planck-sized mouth. It looks as if 4d space is expanding.

The Greek gods

The Greek gods live on the olympus. They are human like and various aspects of human life are present in different gods. The gods can be contacted. They quarel. The impersonal god of Xenophanes is still present in our day. He is called God/Allah/JHWH. He is omnipresent and omniscient and omnipotent. He is one. The only one without further discussion. All other gods are non-gods. He has the power to send you to heaven or hell outside our universe. Lucifer has his way too though. As a fallen angel he wants take over the throne of god. The angels are there to protect God. God created the universe, which appears to be eternal. But God exists outside of spacetime and has created eternal time. But not creation in a spatiotemporal way. God is love.

Will two do?

That's more like Heidegger's version (he traded on his Husserl connection so that most people are too confused to tell them apart). Some flaws in Husserl's own version needed attending to and Walter Hopp in Phenomenology, a contemporary approach pubd Routledge 2020 covers the scheme systematically and the comments already made by others to make it hang together better. In particular Husserl identified three successive phases in perception including valuing (which ties in with Nietzsche's call) which is separate from judgment. — Fine Doubter

Maybe it sounds like Heidegger because I simplified it a bit.

Husserl maintained you can't genuinely perform "reductions" or "brackettings" (which just means hold two or more things in your mind alongside each other) beyond what "is" into the fact of "is" itself. — Fine Doubter

Reduction is the removal of all knowledge of the world that isn’t based on immediate intuitive givenness.

Heidegger reifies a thing he calls Being itself, which causes all sorts of personality and societal disturbances. — Fine Doubter

Heidegger’s Being isn’t a reification. Could you elaborate on what you mean by ‘personality and societal
disturbances’?

To my mind the meaning in what is, is "Is". Things that are, are telling us that they are, and that they are what they are. This is the answer to the "why is there something rather than nothing" question. (There must have been an existence wave or something. Popper's rather nice word is "propensity". I call it Sam Johnson's Toe.) Why questions are mostly how questions, and how questions are mostly what questions. To my mind, this must be the basic premise of logic. — Fine Doubter

This also the premise of empiricism, the myth of the given, and rationalism of logic. These are all concepts that phenomenology puts into question.

When one adds (to Husserl's scheme) the semiotics of Peirce (reading the language of nature as well as culture) and those forms of hermeneutics that resemble it (i.e not Heidegger's), not forgetting quasi-indexicality in holy texts (why gods are reported to say what they are saying and who it was as if to) and one gets a toolkit for sanity. — Fine Doubter

Peirce never freed himself from Hegelian rationalism.

That was meant as an illustration (sample) of how analogy tells us something about separate things, even though it doesn't tell us exactly the same about each - just something similar.

I hopped to that, from what A W Moore in The evolution of modern metaphysics: making sense of things considers an illegitimate usage of reduction which Heidegger claimed in contrast to Husserl.

(I do a lot of hopping.)

Aboriginal dreamtime and their reality of a Natural world — Prishon

It's the same world as the only world there is, it isn't a different reality.

what you mean by ‘personality and societal
disturbances’ — Joshs

Imposing some "Absolute" on others (which has been done, always accompanied by some form talk of same). Whilst maths for example isn't a complete language, its proper understanding furnishes us with a clue: something "more than more" invites us to be more tentative and not very categorical.

removal — Joshs

Not complete removal, so much as simply setting different issues in separate view as much as is needed to avoid conflating and confusing them. For example, one needn't lay down that metaphysics is about some sort of horrific solid gunk before knowing anything about perception (one would be likely to know less that way). Assumptions in other words: the real version of Occam's razor - clearing the way to investigate real realities that can form a layer of better probable assumptions to further research after. Some irrational "metaphysics" which was the background at the time, exhausted and closed people's minds to proper assumptions because improper ones made them look incompatible. There are other phenomenologists, but I gather Husserl's distinctive is his breadth.

Peirce ... Hegelian — Joshs

Comparing my knowledge of Peirce commentary and Hegel commentary I'm not aware that he had that problem. He was motivated by his scientific practice (surveying etc). Until and including Kant (and so I've just learned, Fries) dialectic was a group of related arguments or, in Peirce's case, relations. I think they all intended to be descriptive. I keep getting told Hegel saw everything becoming something else and that he has an Absolute fixation. Soon I'm going to seek guidance about primary sources - I want more free PDFs.

tool box — T Clark

Great analogy! :grin:

I'll try to answer your question in a different way the the previous replies.

What onthology basically is, is a framework to conceptualize content.
In that sense (im guessing) onthological relativism would come down to a statement of :
"we can not concepzualize some content fully with only one framework."

This kinda implies that you need at least two frameworks to conceptualize content A.
If statements about the content have no realiationship with each other there is no trivial reason why you shouldn't add the two statements up as statements about different variables about the same thing.
If they have a relation or overlap there is no trivial reason why there shouldnt be a framework that includes said relation or the overlap.

In a sense you could try to understand a framework as a basic n-dimensional vector space. If someone claims that the world needs another m-dimensional vector space to be described properly theres no reason why you can't just make an n+m-dimensional vectorspace to include both options.

So in a sense thats the most trivial counterargument. And also kind of the default position.

This in a way means theres no real counterargument to be made since the proponent of multiple ontholgies would have to show that there are two ontholgies that can't possibly be included in one bigger picture. This specific case would have very specific counterarguements.

The most basic example that comes to my mind for multiple ontholgies would be that the frameworks contradict each other.

Lets say you have two 3d vectorspaces with the dimensions w, x, y for V1 and x, y, z for V2 and you would find that in V1, w, x, y are all orthagonal but in V2 x, y, are not onthagonal. Creating incompatablity to be combined. If both V1 and V2 are consistent and applicable you have a case that said onthologies can't be combined.

So in a sense the most obvious answer is that your examples can be thought of as parts of the same reality rather then different realities.

Btw I think the question regarding reality was if you understand reality as the independant world, or as the image, in your head, of the world that you expierience.
Based on your examples I assumed you ment "physical reality" rather then "expierienced reality".
Btw2 This would be way easier if you actually elaborate on your concepts and the terminology or provide refrence sources.

So the only reality is that of vector spaces? But what if the realities are non-physical? You assumed I had these in mind, bu I havent. What you propose here is a math model of how physics pro- or regresses. But that physical way of thinking is just one among many. My first example of massless, interacting rishon fields is the absolute example of this reality.8

It's the same world as the only world there is, it isn't a different reality. — Fine Doubter

Yes. Only the dreamtime world reality is the real one. The world of quarks and leptons is just a minor part of it.