On a more serious note and putting aside what I said earlier about "real" here, if a word is causing more obscurity than clarity, perhaps its best either to drop the word, or using it sparingly. We can get awfully tangled up in arguing about the meaning of words as opposed to arguing ideas. — Manuel

Manuel had seen that coming.




Once again stupid definition games that you just use and some other members here as to hide behind every time you run out of arguments.Putting Witty ahead as authority.Well sorry but Wittgenstein never said what you imply in many of your posts that we shouldn't discuss at all issues and concepts that aren't perfectly defined.
I ask you specific questions and you give me back silly generalizations.

shown in the way we use the word in our language games... — Banno

And that way also make us understand our reality as we do know.

we shouldn't discuss at all issues and concepts that aren't perfectly defined. — dimosthenis9

I'm not saying that, although @T Clark may be. I'm saying that we don't always need to start with definitions - indeed, that we cannot always start with definitions.

A moment's consideration of the nature of definitions will show this to be so.

My dear Banno.I value your opinions( despite the stubbornness and the irony that they are inhaled) but at that post exchange we had at this thread,you did waste my time and in fact i wanted to do something indeed.
If you re read our conversation you fucked me up for good.Going me from one generalization to another without discussing about the actual "juice" at all.And now this..

I'm saying that we don't always need to start with definitions - indeed, that we cannot always start with definitions.

A moment's consideration of the nature of definitions will show this to be so. — Banno

Another irrelevant generalization that says nothing about what i asked or wanted to talk about.So we might not always need to start with definitions,i agree ..anddd?
Anyway let's drop it.

I'm sorry that I have misunderstood your question. Perhaps you would like to try again?

Well not really.I don't have the fuel for that and is really late here. i have to go to bed.Plus i don't think a misunderstanding took place here.Questions were simple and specific.

You just told me what real shouldn't be considered (which I also disagreed) but nothing about what real should be considered then after all for us humans.
Turning it into definitions once again.I care much more about the actual concepts that words try to describe.And they don't have to be defined perfectly as to still find out things about them.
We lose the forest for the tree with all that endless circular definition game that takes place constantly here on TPF.Anyway i m sure we will discuss about it again.

I avoid the rain by staying inside. Hence, it is not ineluctable; and not real. — Banno

When it is raining outside, you cannot "avoid" that it is raining outside "by staying inside". Btw, your example doesn't concern ontology, Banno, which, in the context of my remarks, isn't relevant.

There's that odd "it's not ontology" thingy again.

Yeah, it is ontology. The claim was that what we can't avoid is what is real; we can avoid rain, cold, pain, poverty, and poor thinking; hence none are real.

:ok: :roll:

although T Clark may be. — Banno

Not me.

That's a white supremacist gesture.

nice edit.

:ok: And your point is —?

I don't use it anymore.

nice edit. — Banno

What edit?

So you let alt-right racists ' coopting one of the oldest human hand gestures stop you from using an emoji? How woke of you, frank. :mask:

So you let alt-right racists ' coopting one of the oldest human hand gestures stop you from using an emoji? — 180 Proof

Pretty much. You forge ahead your own way, buddy.

I avoid the rain by staying inside. Hence, it is not ineluctable; and not real. — Banno

When it is raining outside, you cannot "avoid" that it is raining outside "by staying inside". Btw, your example doesn't concern ontology, Banno, which, in the context of my remarks, isn't relevant. — 180 Proof

This line of discussion leads towards the topic of irrealism; for we can at least claim

A. Each individual has a different conception of reality, that is incommensurable with respect to each and every other persons conception of reality; different individuals aren't using a common basis of understanding when they each refer to 'reality', for their understanding of reality is relative to their unique perspectives.

But if A is true, then how does one avoid the conclusion of irrealism?

B. Each individual has a different reality; there isn't a shared reality that individuals are occupying and describing.

On the other hand, each of us will probably insist that we possess a concept of 'shared reality', if only because we communicate to each other and to ourselves in a common language whose semantics aren't publicly defined in relation to the perspectival judgements of a particular individual at a particular moment in time and space.

But isn't even this supposedly aperpsectival concept of 'shared reality' relative to perspective, and thus not a defence against irrealism?

different individuals aren't using a common basis of understanding when they each refer to 'reality' — sime

If this is true, it is impossible to explain how it is that there are commonalities in every human’s understanding of reality. No human ever, in any culture in any time, ever jumped up in the air...and didn’t meet with the inevitability of coming down. While some of them may indeed reason differently than others as to why they all always come down, the common basis of understanding the reality that they will, remains, no matter the why.

That there is a common basis for any human’s understanding is simply that each one of them is human. Irrealism, on the other hand, wants to thwart the rules of understanding, the common basis of it, by granting exceptions to the rule the authority to negate the rule. This absurdity disappears by restricting reality to a mere general metaphysical conception, re: , constructed and apprehended by humans alone. Then those silly marks bracketing the word, which carries the implication it isn’t a valid conception in the first pace, can disappear as well.

Now, it may be the case that humans aren’t using a common basis for understanding when they each refer to the content of reality, what can be said about that which belongs to the conception, that which is subsumed under it without contradiction, while the concept of reality itself remains untouched.
———-

But isn't even this supposedly aperpsectival concept of 'shared reality' relative to perspective, and thus not a defence against irrealism? — sime

Irrealism, re: Goodman 1978, is just another speculative metaphysical theory, having less logical support than its predecessors. Rather than the parsimony of many conceptions of one world’s reality, the theory suggests there are as many worlds as there are conceptions of the reality of them. Rather than granting the validity of the notion my experiences in this reality are different than your experiences in this same reality, it just might be the case my experiences relate only to my world but your experiences relate only to your world.

A possible defense against irrealism begins, then, with the fact that experiences....or perspectives if you wish.....belong to and are processes of the owner of them, predicated entirely on understanding. The world, and the singular reality of it, whatever it may be, reduces to naught but the necessary condition for all of them.

Not that irrealism is unjustified under its conditions; just that it’s less justifiable under others.

This absurdity disappears by restricting reality to a mere general metaphysical conception, re: ↪T Clark, constructed and apprehended by humans alone. Then those silly marks bracketing the word, which carries the implication it isn’t a valid conception in the first pace, can disappear as well. — Mww

The silly marks are there for grammatical, not philosophical, purposes. I was referring to the concept of reality, not reality itself.

No need to explain. I hold with most of your position in real/reality philosophy, reject any position calling for those silly marks bracketing those words, in everybody’s grammar philosophy.

I do not understand irrealism as merely "perspecctival" or "subjective perception" but rather, in Nelson Goodman's sense, that the world is a composite of different (or all of it's) possible descriptions of the world – a complementary plurality – instead of a unity (i.e. univocity). In other words, the territory does not transcend its mapping so much as the territory is conceived of as an ensemble of all of its possible maps; 'reality as such' as a generalization from – simplification of – many different, particular realities (i.e. ways of depicting and modeling). I find this concerption of irreality very much related to the modal ontology of actualism.

In other words, the territory does not transcend its mapping so much as the territory is conceived of as an ensemble of all of its possible maps; 'reality as such' as a generalization from – simplification of – many different, particular realities (i.e. ways of depicting and modeling). — 180 Proof

So at the end you think that "our real" is just one form of how real can be presented? One of numerous other possible forms that can be?Or you mean something else?

It is crucial for Goodman’s argument that in the conflict between (S1) and (S2) we have (a) an actual conflict between statements, and (b) no other way to resolve that conflict — SEP: Nelson Goodman

But there are other ways to resolve "the conflict". Either the cases are equivalent and can be transformed from one to the other as in the geocentric/heliocentric example, or one account is wrong or insufficient, as in the Herodotus/Thucydides example.

Inventing the paraphernalia of worldmaking is surely overkill.

So at the end you think that "our real" is just one form of how real can be presented? — dimosthenis9

"Our reality" consists in every possible "form of how real can be presented". Analogously, chess consists in every game that it is possible to play, whether or not they are ever played, and not just instantiated by a single representative (perfect? ideal?) game of chess..

One of numerous other possible forms that can be?

No. Every "possible form that can be" known and unknown.

Or you mean something else?

See above (and links at end of my previous post).

Our reality" consists in every possible "form of how real can be presented". Analogously, chess consists in every game that it is possible to play, whether or not they are ever played, and not just instantiated by a single representative (perfect? ideal?) game of chess — 180 Proof

Yeah but our reality is just one of the possible forms.That's why is named "our".Not all possible forms together,as the use of "consists in" might make someone think.
Analogously we play just one game of all the possible games that can be played in chess.

Anyway i think we have an agreement at the core of your argument.The rest(like the word consists that i objected or your corrections)seem more like wording details that don't change much the essence.

Check out the links provided here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/751787 (@ the bottom)

But there are other ways to resolve "the conflict". Either the cases are equivalent and can be transformed from one to the other as in the geocentric/heliocentric example, or one account is wrong or insufficient, as in the Herodotus/Thucydides example.

Inventing the paraphernalia of worldmaking is surely overkill. — Banno

So objectively speaking, is the Earth moving or not? Can objectivity be relative?

Well since you take the actualism side as i understand from the links,then we merely agree.I don't see our reality like a combination of all possible realities that could exist.But more like just one version(frame) of many possible others.At least we share the belief that we just talk for one world and its reality and not for many others.

the world is a composite of different (or all of it's) possible descriptions of the world – a complementary plurality – instead of a unity (i.e. univocity) — 180 Proof

There are an infinite number of possible descriptions of the world. This just seems like a trick to get people who are afraid to have an actual opinion about reality off the hook.

Drop the word "objective" if it gets in the way.

Both an observer on the earth and one in orbit around the sun will agree that, for an observer on the earth the earth remains stationary, while for an observer in orbit around the sun it moves. Movement is relative to the frame of reference and can be translated from one frame to another. Basic relativity.

You and I sit opposite each other at a table. On my right is a knife, on my left, a fork. The fork is on your right. Does that mean there is no objective truth as to the location of the fork?