http://www.henryflynt.org/philosophy/flawbelief.htmlWe begin with the question of whether there is a realm beyond my "immediate experience." Does the Empire State Building continue to exist even when I am not looking at it? If either of these questions can be asked, then there must indeed be a realm beyond my experience. If I can ask whether there is a realm beyond my experience, then the answer must be yes. The reason is that there has to be a realm beyond my experience in order for the phrase 'a realm beyond my experience' to have any meaning. ... The assertion 'There is realm beyond my experience' is true if it is meaningful, and that is precisely what is wrong with it. There are rules implicit in the natural language as to what is semantically legitimate. Without a rule that a statement and its negation cannot simultaneously be true, for example, the natural language would be in such chaos that nothing could be done with it. An example of implicit semantics is the aphorism that "saying a thing is so doesn't make it so." This aphorism has been carried over into the semantics of the physical sciences: its import is that there is no such thing as a substantive assertion which is true merely because it is meaningful. If a statement is true merely because it is meaningful, then it is too true. It must be some kind of definitional trick which doesn't say anything. And this is our conclusion about the assertion that there is a realm beyond my experience. Since it would be true if it were meaningful, it cannot be a substantive assertion.
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The methodology of this essay requires special comment. Because we are considering ultimate questions, it is pointless to try to support our argument on some more basic, generally accepted account of logic, language, and cognition. After all, such accounts are being called into question here. The only possible approach for this essay is an internal critique of common sense and the natural language, one which judges them by reference to aspects of themselves.
As an example of the application of our initial result to specific questions of belief, consider the question of whether the Empire State Building continues to exist when I am not looking at it. If this question is even meaningful, then there has to be a realm in which the nonexperienced Empire State Building does or does not exist. This realm is precisely the realm beyond my experience. The question of whether the Empire State Building continues to exist when I am not looking at it depends on the very assertion, about the existence of a realm beyond my experience, which we found to be nonsubstantive. Thus, the assertion that the Empire State Building continues to exist when I am not looking at it must also be considered as nonsubstantive or meaningless, as a special case of a definitional trick. — Flynt
Solipsism basically boils down to cogito ergo sum (re René Descrates). The only truth that we're absolutely sure of is our own existence as minds. The rest of what we experience, the so-called material world, including but not limited to other minds, could be a hallucination/illusion.
How do you respond? — Agent Smith
Interesting. Which of the famous idealists are dualists? Isn't the notion that 'all which exists is mentation' eg, Schopenhauer, a monist claim? Number 2 is Kantian, right? I heard Kastrup say he doesn't consider this to be idealism as such. What's the distribution of 1's and 2's? — Tom Storm
Here's a summary. The concepts of logic and certainty (and concepts themselves! ) are inherently social. Claims and arguments to the contrary are performative contradictions. If you debate this with me, that implies acknowledgent of norms that both of us ought to respect, along with a share world that we can be right or wrong about.... — Pie
Do you reject the notion of the philosophical zombie?
Do you not think it possible that the exact same public behaviours that we associate with other people can occur in the absence of other minds? — Michael
If minds are radically private somethings, then I can have no idea what you refer to by 'mind.' — Pie
I, personally, have no trouble understanding what words like "mind", "self", "will", "thoughts", "private sensations", etc. mean and refer to — Michael
I also don't think that these are things that can be reduced to any public, physical thing, e.g. brain activity. — Michael
To be clear, I don't deny 'raw feels' and the rest. I'm just trying to point out their epistemological uselessness. If we want to establish something rationally, they can play no direct role. — Pie
too much faith in Wittgenstein's private language argument. — Michael
That's exactly why seeing other "people" is no indication that these "people" have a mind, a self, a will, thoughts, private sensations, etc. — Michael
My objection is that you seem to imply that 'mind' somehow has a public meaning while simultaneously rejecting every public criterion for its detection. — Pie
Yes, what's wrong with that? There are plenty of words and phrases that work this way. — Michael
The notion that words can only refer to things that are publicly accessible seems evidently false. — Michael
https://iep.utm.edu/sellars/#H4What behavior, then, is Jones seeking to explain by the postulation of something he calls, “thoughts” and “thinking”? Namely that people sometimes engage in purposive, intelligent behavior when silent. Sometimes, that is, people engage in what we call, “thinking out loud,” where they speak about the intelligent behavior they are engaged in. But sometimes the behavior itself is present, with no accompanying verbal commentary, as it were. (Imagine someone changing the faucet in their kitchen, with instructions before them, sometimes reading aloud the instructions, sometimes declaring an intention to do something next, followed by periods of silence). What exactly, Jones wonders, is going on when people engage in such intelligent behavior when they are completely silent?
According to his theory, during all these occasions of intelligent behavior there is something going on “inside” people, in their heads if you like, some of which gets verbalized, some of which doesn’t. The way to explain such intelligent behavior is to see it as the culmination of a silent, inner type of reasoning, an “inner speaking” going on inside of people. Jones reasons that this intelligent behavior involves the occurrence of hidden episodes which are similar to the activity of talking. Jones says, in essence, “Let’s call it ‘thinking,’ and though it is like talking, it is silent, or covert inner speech. Thinking is what is going on in us, which lies behind and explains our intelligent behavior and our intelligent talking.”
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Returning to this myth, we note that at the culmination of this first stage, Jones has only postulated the existence of these inner episodes—“inner” in being under the skin. In the second stage, Jones teaches his peers to use the theory to explain people’s behavior, in the absence of their “thinking out-loud.” Finally, and here is the crucial transition, Jones teaches people to apply the theory to themselves.
Having mastered the theory for third-person use, that is, people begin making inferences about themselves: “I just uttered such and such, so I must have been thinking such and such, (though I was not aware of it).” Eventually, by training and reinforcement from the community, people come to be able to actually report not just that they are thinking, but also what they are thinking, in a direct, non-inferential manner. Just as people can be trained to make immediate, non-inferential judgments about the nature of public objects, Jones’ pupils come to be able to issue non-inferential reports of their own thoughts, what is going on inside them, in a way that others aren’t. They can report directly about what is happening in their own minds, though according to Sellars, this has proceeded entirely within the constraints of Psychological Nominalism. Jones’ peers developed awareness of their own thoughts only after, or at least concurrently with, mastery of the public concepts (i.e. words) of “thinking”, “believing”, “wishing”, and so on, that comes with the learning of Jones’ theory itself.
Your own arguments seem to entail that if some things are public then some things are private. — Michael
I don't deny the value or coherence of the distinction in ordinary value. I imagine we both know pretty well how to use it, like when it'd be shady to make a private phonecall (at company expense) or to cruelly make something public (a friend's secret.) — Pie
But that's not the sense of "public" that you're using in this discussion. — Michael
Why would "if all this is an illusion?" make no sense. — Agent Smith
Why would a blob of everything call itself a me and not a Tuesday or a trombone ? What could such a blob of everything mean by true or false, reality or illusion? There's no 'outside' or 'other' to be account for, worry about, get right, conform to. In short, there's no contrast. The night in which all cows are black. — Pie
Quote out of context, mon ami, quote out of context. — Agent Smith
I'm sincerely trying to show you why I think the claim is incoherent, experimenting with different approaches and metaphors. — Pie
One of the many possible ways to be deceived is to make me think there's an external reality, — Agent Smith
'External reality' means (roughly) that about which one might be deceived. The possibility of deception on this matter is also its impossibility. — Pie
How is idealism different from solipsism? — GLEN willows
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