So Kant doesn't deny the existence of the material world but I think he rightfully denies what we would call the 'mind-independent reality' of the material world. — Wayfarer
Like I said, YOU already reified THE subject by giving it a name, "subject". I'm merely asking what you mean by YOUR use of the scribble, "subject". What do you intend for me to understand by your use of the scribble?Does a subject or being have uniform properties?
— Harry Hindu
That is also a question that tends to reify the subject. — Wayfarer
I think there are things that are the case and yet are not believed (held to be true) by any mind. — Banno
So over to you to explain what "mind-independent reality" might be. — Banno
We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. This, of course, is one of the explanations for the almost unfathomably deep counterintuitiveness of transcendental idealism, and also for the general notion of 'depth' with which people associate Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. Something akin to it is the reason for much of the prolonged, self-disciplined meditation involved in a number of Eastern religious practices. — Bryan Magee, Schoenhauer's Philosophy
I'm merely asking what you mean by YOUR use of the scribble, "subject" — Harry Hindu
Do you really wish to argue that there are other minds, but not tables and chairs and trees and rocks? How are you to know about other minds, if not via your experience of their bodies?
How do you know that there are other minds? — Banno
It exists independently of anything going on in our minds. — Wayfarer
I think there are things that are the case and yet are not believed (held to be true) by any mind.
— Banno
Surely - as a surmise. But by definition, you will never know that, because if you did know it, then it would be beheld by a mind. — Wayfarer
24. The idealist's question would be something like: "What right have I not to doubt the existence of my hands?" (And to that the answer can't be: I know that they exist.) But someone who asks such a question is overlooking the fact that a doubt about existence only works in a language-game. Hence, that we should first have to ask: what would such a doubt be like?, and don't understand this straight off. — On Certainty
All excellent questions.When you observe another human being - call it their "brain activity" or behavior - what do you think is going on? Your notion seems to verge on solipsism.
Your act of observing is, of course, your own subjective experience. But where do the things you observe originate from? Your own mind? An uber-mind? Or do you just refuse to think about it?
If your brain/body is an illusion, why that particular illusion? Why is it universally shared?
I think a great deal of your position hinges on whether you think other humans exist, what they are, and how you know. — Real Gone Cat
that there are things outside of our minds, or not? — Banno
Minds, tables , bodies , quarks and chairs are all contestable realities, conceptual abstractions that we make use of in various ways , which differ in ways subtle or profound from occasion to occasion, from culture to culture and from era to era. — Joshs
Then the subject is an object, like a person.By subject, I refer to the subject of experience. Conventionally, the person, the being, to whom experiences occur. — Wayfarer
Where, precisely, is the boundary? — Wayfarer
All philosophy is about sentences to you. It's just language-games. — Wayfarer
Minds, tables , bodies , quarks and chairs are all contestable realities, conceptual abstractions that we make use of in various ways — Joshs
In this view, the physical world really does exist outside that but in a manner which is by definition unknowable. — Wayfarer
Yet idealism holds as a minimal position that reality is mind-dependent. Reality is of course what is said by true sentences. Hence idealism must hold that the truth of a sentence true is dependent on mind. — Banno
If idealism is true then we know everything. — Banno
Your extreme idealist must conclude that because it is not part of experience, what you will do tomorrow does not (yet) exist. It is not either true nor false. — Banno
For A and B to be separate there must be some C that makes them separate? Why? What then separates C from A and B? Some D? And so on ad infinitum. Seems an unreasonable requirement. — Michael
I think you misunderstand. It's obviously not "some C" which separates A from B. What is the case is that A is different from, or other than B. C could not make A other than B, because C is of the same type as both A and B, and this is why the infinite regress appears, you have not grasped the need for something of a different type.. What makes A different from B, must be something categorically distinct from both A and B, as well as C, D, E, F, or anything else of that category, because these are all of the same type, and cannot account for the difference within the type. Another thing of the same type cannot account for the differences between things of the same type.
This is why there is a need for dualism, rather than pure idealism, or solipsism. If A and B represent distinct minds, then there must be something which makes A other than, or different from B. This must be something categorically distinct, like "matter" is supposed to be distinct from mind, not another bit of the same substance, C. Or else we would have one continuity of mind, A, B, C, D... with nothing really separating one from the other. — Metaphysician Undercover
There could not be two distinct things without separation between them, otherwise they'd be only one thing. And, if there is separation between them, that separation must consist of something. If it's not something real, then we're back to there really being only one thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think that’s an oversimplification. — Michael
idealism is the position that only minds and mental phenomena exist. It is quiet on truth. — Michael
A rabbit hole. At the least, we must agree that "P" is true iff P. If idealism is true, P must be about minds and mental phenomena.Truth might not depend on the existence of some entity that makes it true (e.g in the case of mathematics, counterfactuals, and statements about the future). — Michael
...how would you name a position that argues that 1) there is no external material world, 2) every entity that exists is a mind or mental phenomena, and 3) logical/mathematical/counterfactual/future truths are mind-independent? — Michael
In saying that "we know everything" it's implied that we know the future. — Michael
...yes. As I said, it was a joke.Fitch's paradox concludes that "every truth is known", not that "I know every truth". — Michael
I don't see how this can be maintained. If idealism is the position that only minds and mental phenomena exist, then idealism is the position that only statements concerning minds and mental phenomena can be true. — Banno
Not at all. Isn't the idealist you mooted is committed to the future not existing, since everything that exists is perceived, and the future is not yet perceived? — Banno
Not sure what that means.I don’t think that truth depends on the existence of some corresponding entity. — Michael
Try this: if idealism is the position that only minds and mental phenomena exist, then any truth about things that exist must be a truth about minds and mental phenomena.
Do you agree? — Banno
If P is true, then it is possible to know P
If P is true, then P is known
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