Perhaps the most difficult exposition to fathom in transcendental metaphysics,....a speculative idealism if there ever was one.....is how I, as thinking subject, can at the same time be the object I think about.

Heidegger spent a whole career introducing a new way to think about the word ‘is’, such as S is P.
— Joshs

OK, so then we're back to "why?". I don't see a way out of this. Before diving into Heidegger, I'd rather just make sure we've got the frame of investigation right. If a claim is about the way the world is, it is a factual claim. If a claim is about some way we could look at the way the world is, then it's a normative or aesthetic claim and it needs a 'why' - why ought I look at thing that way, as opposed to any other.

That 'why' must itself be a factual claim "it will make you happier", "it will work better", "it's more useful"...etc. A claim which takes a position on the way the world is.

If all we have is a series of 'ways of looking at things' which never terminate in a claim about the way the world is (such as to advise I look at things that way) then I'm not sure I see the point. — Isaac

There are very different ways that philosophy can understand the relationship between series of ways of looking. at things. Descartes was among the first Western thinkers to assert that we are in such an indirect relationship to the world that we only have ‘ways’ of looking at it. But he needed a divine capacity of reason to explain how we know the ‘correct’ way of assembling its parts in our heads. Kant agreed with Descartes that there are more or less correct ways of looking at things , but these ways are organized by indirectly by pre-given categories of perception rather than directly by causal relations between material things.

For Hegel, the series of ways of looking at things has a teleological , dialectical structure. The world is no longer a fixed scheme or gestalt , whose determined
structure we approximate more and more
closely. Instead , it is a becoming in which each scientific-cultural gestalt, scheme , paradigm, worldview, way of looking at things belongs to an evolving series on which the ‘parts’ of the world continuously change form, meaning and sense. For Hegel , the objective reality is not to be found in any of the contingent particulars of nature (physical laws, constants, properties) , but in the structure of dialectical progress itself. All local facts are in themselves irrational.

Postmodernism follows upon Hegel in focusing for the structure of historical change ( the way the world ‘is’ consists of its continual becoming according to a certain
nature’) rather than in empirical facts, which they also believe to be irrational.

But postmodernists jettison Hegel’s dialectical method. There is no grand overarching logic tying together the evolving historical series of ways of looking at things, no final overcoming of contradiction through unity, no Popperian asymptotic approach of truth through falsification.

This isnt to say that there isnt an ethic to be found in the postmodern notion of becoming. Even though experience is at every moment , for every thing animate and inanimate, in continual transformation , based on no preset rule, formula or scheme , and with no human cultural directionality toward ‘truth’, there is still a better and worse to be found. Cultural-scientific-personal beliefs can become ‘relatively’ stagnant and dogmatic. This stuckness is associated with a certain pathology.
For postmodern social theorists, psychologists and ethicists, the choosing of one of an endlessly changing historical series of ways of looking at things leads to violence, conformity , despair, nihilism and skepticism. Why would this be? Because such a slowing down of experiential change is a kind of fragmentation and self-alienation. In a world of naive realism , physical objects are dead things alienated from each other and from us.

In empirical representational accounts of social science, the experimenter is alienated from the subject , who is vulnerable to ‘biases’ that the third personal stand detects from a position outside of the subject.

Shifting from a modernist to a postmodern ‘stance’ amounts to setting into accelerated motion a becoming that is always already in process, but plodding for the modernist. Or can take us from alienated , fragmented experience to an ongoing relevance and intimacy in our relations with each other.

↪Wayfarer

Perhaps the most difficult exposition to fathom in transcendental metaphysics,....a speculative idealism if there ever was one.....is how I, as thinking subject, can at the same time be the object I think about. — Mww

What happens when one of my hands touches the other? I can be aware of myself as a subjectivity who senses, or as a body being sensed. But I can’t do both at the same time. I shift back and forth between awareness of myself
as a body and awareness of myself as a mind.

I would say there is no ‘thinking subject’ to be found before or outside the relation to an object. Subjective awareness is nothing other than relation to an object. Subjectivity is an activity in the world not an inner thing or substance.

Dummett’s Manifestation Argument
Dummett’s Language Acquisition Argument
Putnam’s Brain-in-a-Vat Argument
Putnam’s Conceptual Relativity Argument
Putnam’s Model-Theoretic Argument

Each would be a source of further discussion. — Banno

Are you sympathetic to Putnam’s anti-realism, and if not , what are your objections?

Yes. The phenomenological argument.

Not where I’m coming from, but ok.

Not where I’m coming from, but ok. — Mww

Where do you think it goes wrong?

I'm not doing all the work. If you care to set out the argument as you see it, we might proceed.

(After all, the article lists three main objections, with each having various variations. Pick the one you think strongest.)

Joshs I'm not doing all the work. If you care to set out the argument as you see it, we might proceed. — Banno

A yes or no would be a helpful starting point. Do you identify with Putnam’s position on realism in large part or do you have significant reservations?

I don't think Putnam’s arguments show that realism is not viable. But the detail is as always important.

My overall position is that the realism/antirealism schism is, like most philosophical arguments, ill-founded.

I'm happy to pick over Putnam’s arguments with you. Except, perhaps, vat-brains, which have been picked to death.

is how I, as thinking subject, can at the same time be the object I think about. — Mww

The body is an object as far as our personal cognition is concerned. I suppose you could say this dual aspect is represented symbolically by the 'descent' into the realm of matter in Platonist philosophy and religious lore. Coming to think of it, it is where, in dualist philosophies, the rubber really meets the road. :-) See what Schopenhauer has to say about it. Kastrup says something similar. From the 'outside', there's a body and brain; from the 'inside' there's a unified being. Two aspects of the one reality.

Philosophy can’t be said to go wrong, but to answer the question......by Brentano, 1874,1889, turning it into a psychological doctrine describing different kinds of phenomena as intentionally directed toward consciousness, rather than being the merely empirical content of it. This expands phenomena into any form of content for consciousness, instead of representations of sensibility alone. In turn, objects of judgement, imagination, volition, and so on, including cognition and even (gasp) experience itself, then assume the guise of phenomena, at the expense of the notion of sensory “appearance” from which the term originated.

If you want me to choose one, I'd go for the model- theoretical argument, and take the position that reference is indeterminate - after Quine and Davidson.

Does that sound fun? What would be your comeback?

Idealism can consist in thinking that so-called external objects are real, but are constituted by virtue of being thought, not merely by your mind or mine, but either by some absolutely other Big Mind, or by an absolutely unconscious collective of small minds.

In the first scenario the objects are independent of your or my mind and indeed all human minds; that is the objects could exist for Big Mind regardless of the existence of any small minds. In the second case the objects can only exist insofar as there is a collective of small minds or perhaps even one small mind would be enough; that would have to be unpacked further.

In turn, objects of judgement, imagination, volition, and so on, including cognition and even (gasp) experience itself, then assume the guise of phenomena, at the expense of the notion of sensory “appearance” from which the term originated. — Mww

Sorry Mww, I'm not a philosopher (and probably shouldn't be here), but is this a critique of phenomenology?

I’m one thing, the cup is another.

Well, as presented by Lucy Allais (it's a long quote to quote by hand at the moment), it seems to me that a Cartesian account of perception is correct, over Kant's actually. The thing is, Kant attempts to show how perception usually happens in ordinary life.

But the principle of perception is better explained by a Cartesian framework: what matters is what the subject reacts to, now what's happening in the so called external world.

But Idealism got a bad start by being usually associated with Berkeley, in denying the existence of a mind independent world. It need not be that at all.

Sure, Kastrup may argue differently, but, he's not convincing, I don't think.

But the principle of perception is better explained by a Cartesian framework: what matters is what the subject reacts to, now what's happening in the so called external world — Manuel

Descartes thought the world plucks the little strings that are attached to the brain (nerves, discovered by dissection of cadavers).

Wouldn't he say we're reacting to the plucking?

Sorta like that, I guess. I only brought up myself, or any self of like kind, because to treat these as both subject and object, is demonstrably impossible.

Sure. But the plucking can happen by something "external", say, seeing a stone, or a hallucination of a stone.

The actual object need not be in the world, for us to react to it the way we do.

I'm not a philosopher — Tom Storm

Cool. Neither am I.

is this a critique of phenomenology? — Tom Storm

No, just a restriction on the concept of phenomena itself. A limitation on their function, if you will. Which reduces to mere opinion on my part, of course.

Sure. But the plucking can happen by something "external", say, seeing a stone, or a hallucination of a stone.

The actual object need not be in the world, for us to react to it the way we do. — Manuel

What is this kind of idealism called?

Got ya. :up:

Reading an essay on mathematical realism. Discussing 'rigid properties', the author says 'objects exist prior to humans thinking about them, and they have rigid properties. All scientific discoveries fall into this category: planets, say, exist “out there” independently of anyone being able to verify this fact (pace extreme postmodernists and radical skeptics), so when we become capable of verifying their existence and of studying their properties we discover them.'

This takes the perspective of scientific realism for granted, and rather casually at that. He acknowledges those who question it, whom he presumably dismisses as 'radical skeptics and extreme postmodernists'.

But note the assumed inherent - that is, unconditional - reality of such objects of experience - and for these purposes, it makes no difference whether the subject is a remote planet or a pen on the desk in front of you. By imbuing objects with that supposed inherent reality, you're overlooking the grounding of that judgement in your own implicit cognitive system. In one sense - the empirical sense - it is of course true that there is a vast world external to and prior to any act of observation of it, with pens and planets and much else besides. But this overlooks the sense in which the world exists as a panoramic construct in the mind of the observer making that judgement (and again consider the etymology of 'world'.)

Consider the proposition 'X exists'. It might sound like an uncontroversial proposition, until you ask the question 'what is X'? Take Pluto, which was previously classified as a planet but no longer. So the answer to the proposition 'Does the planet named Pluto exist?' used to be positive, but is now negative. I'm only saying that to draw attention to the conditional nature of such statements. They're dependent on definitions, naming conventions, and so on. For the purposes of astronomy and natural sciences generally, it is of no particular importance, but when it comes to the question of the nature of being, then it's a different matter. And the human has a role to play in all such judgements even though from an objective point of view, we're but ephemeral instances on a speck of dust in an infinite cosmos.

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers. [Physicist] Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time loses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two sub-systems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe. So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

Am I wrong in thinking that this was only something taken seriously by those defending physicalism? Is it possible an idealist position actually depends on a failure to define criteria fro 'real' such that there can be equivocation on what does and does not belong in that category? — Isaac

This is on of the reasons for my preferring to set out realism in terms of there being truths that are not related to minds. It replaces the analysis of reality with truth and mind.

So speaking roughly, realism holds that there are things we can't know. Antirealism, including idealism, holds that whatever is true is somehow related to mind.

Fitch's paradox is not a problem for realism taken in this way. But antirealism must address it.

The core problems for idealism are explaining consistency in the world around us, explaining error and explaining the existence of others. All three are dissipated by supposing that truth is not dependent on mind.

It's a good question.

It doesn't really have a label per se, recognized as such by most of the historians of philosophy, save for Arthur O. Lovejoy, nevertheless, Chomsky, who knows about the classics of this period (17-19th century phil.) referred to it as "rationalistic idealism."

He has in mind Descartes and the Cambridge Neo-Platonists, Henry More and particularly, Ralph Cudworth.

Virtually unknown today, but, quite persuasive, IMO.

Virtually unknown today, but, quite persuasive, IMO. — Manuel

Interesting, thanks.

realism holds that there are things we can't know. Antirealism, including idealism, holds that whatever is true is somehow related to mind.

The core problems for idealism are explaining consistency in the world around us, explaining error and explaining the existence of others. All three are dissipated by supposing that truth is not dependent on mind. — Banno

Not all irrealisms, anti-realisms, idealisms and relativisms assume that truth is related to the human mind. Deleuze begins from the ‘idea’, but this is not the functioning of a human mind, it is a property of all things animate and inanimate. It can be considered a form of pan-psychism, but it does not assume a notion of psyche as an inner , spiritual substance. Rather, it refers to information transfer involved in self-organization at the level of inorganic processes . “There is information transfer and self-organization in autocatalytic loops, and this fits the cybernetic definition of mind offered by Gregory Bateson when he identifies mind as synonymous with cybernetic system—the relevant total information-processing, trial-and-error completing unit.”( John Protevi)

Sure, I'm aware of such oddities. It looks like a reworking of god as the answer to the three problems I listed.

Pan-psychism brings with it all the problems of any supernatural entity.

Information transfer. That brings with it much the same issue as my original question to @Wayfarer - When one's mind constructs reality, what is it it constructs it from? When information is transferred, what is it transferred in? Information is pattern; patterns are in something.

Moreover, if there is a something, independent of mind, then in what sense does the theory remain a version of idealism?

So I'm not impressed, nor persuaded.

When one's mind constructs reality, what is it it constructs it from? — Banno

I've answered numerous times already.

'The external universe, outside the scope of observation by any living being, is the residue after all sensable qualities have been taken away. What remain are only formal entities which have no concrete interpretation. Thus, the universe uncoupled from observation is an abstract system in search of an interpretation. ...The material universe, of course, has an independent existence quite apart from observers. But the important lesson for us is that this external universe is very different from the way we imagine it to be. The mind of living beings projects all manner of sensable features onto material objects, hence we perceive the world with all the properties we have projected onto it—but objectively the unobserved universe is formless and featureless.'

Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 85). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition. — Wayfarer

This resembles Kant's distinction between phenomena, what appears to us, and what the universe is in itself.

Moreover, if there is a something, independent of mind, then in what sense does the theory remain a version of idealism? — Banno

Transcendental idealism does not propose that the physical world exists in the individual mind. The analysis takes place on a different level to that - what are the conditions by which the subject knows any object whatever. But you are clinging to a straw-man version of idealism.

It can be considered a form of pan-psychism, but it does not assume a notion of psyche as an inner, spiritual substance. — Joshs

Buddhist philosophy denies the existence of substance in the philosophical sense, and also of the transcendental subject (ātman). But it still has an idealist school.

Vijnanavada [says that] that the reality a human being perceives does not exist, any more than do the images called up by a monk in meditation. Only the consciousness that one has of the momentary interconnected events (dharmas) that make up the cosmic flux can be said to exist. Consciousness, however, also clearly discerns in these so-called unreal events consistent patterns of continuity and regularity; in order to explain this order in which only chaos really could prevail, the school developed the tenet of the Ālaya-vijñāna or “storehouse consciousness ¹.” Sense perceptions are ordered as coherent and regular by the store consciousness, of which one is consciously unaware. Sense impressions produce certain configurations (samskaras) in this unconscious that “perfume” later impressions so that they appear consistent and regular. Each being possesses (instantiates) this store consciousness, which thus becomes a kind of collective consciousness that orders human perceptions of the world, though this world does not exist (in its own right). — Encylopedia Brittanica

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1. @Tom Storm - the Ālaya-vijñāna has been compared with Jung's 'collective unconscious'.