Well, I am in that boat, but only reluctantly so. I have been able to derive things from the empty set of assumptions, and as such, I might be able to derive ontological idealism

What do you mean by “empty set of assumptions”?

I think it might be possible via realizing restrictions on causality

What do you mean by “realizing restrictions on causality”? Idealism eliminates the possibility of causality: there is no physical interaction analogous to a physicalist worldview.

All knowledge is directly derived from the mental (by definition of the mental), and in order to know that we can know of the non-mental is to know that there is a completely reliable mapping between the mental and non-mental. However, any such knowledge would be mediated by the mental. How can we know of a mapping if we do not have access to both the domain and its image?

The problem I would have with this is that it is still positing a concept of “consciousness-independent” object, and simply noting we can’t be 100% sure we are understanding the physical correctly (by the logic you already explicated); but that is still fundamentally conceding that one can know of the physical as the entire conceptual model is predicated on the idea that the mental is a sensing of the physical—which places the physical still conceptually as primary. Which, in turn, to me, makes the view very anti-idealist, because idealism is, at its root, that the mind (or mental) is primary. Now I understand that is valid, in the contemporary literature, to use “epistemological idealism” to refer to the kind of argument you noted, but, to me, it is just a severely skeptical physicalist or substance dualist view because it is still conceives the world as fundamentally and primarily physical (hence the outlook that the mental is an image of the physical). In my kind of style of epistemological idealism, I do not conceptualize the world that way: I do not concede that the senses are of something independent of them. I just don’t see how one is an idealist in any sense if they are still viewing the world as fundamentally (and really ontologically I would argue) physical (or some other mind-independent thing). For example, Kant is considered an epistemological and trancsendental idealist (and to an extent I get why), but I think his view simply was incoherent with idealism in truth because he was still positing these realist notions of objects which we interpret as minds.

Bob

Right - see your point.

What are some good ontological/logical arguments for ontological idealism? — Ø implies everything

If, by "Idealism" you mean the rejection of Realism, all Either/Or logical arguments will go round in circles. You can't have overhead mental Ideality without its substrate of material Reality. And a Reality without sentient beings will have no Ideas. Reality knows itself via Ideality : the ability to abstract Concepts from Percepts ; to generalize Universals from Particulars ; to synthesize personal Meanings from impersonal Things. Reality & Ideality go together like matter & aether.

That's why I have resorted to an Intuitive argument that I call BothAnd. For example, Cogito Ergo Sum implies that I am both Mind and Body; both Knower and Known. We can have isolated abstractions only in imagination. :smile:

PS__Your appellation of "zero implies everything" sounds like a BothAnd concept. "Nothing" is meaningless without Something to relate it to. Computer logic is based on the fundamental relationship between All (1) and Nothing (0). Likewise, the concept of "Zero" is merely the opposite end of the statistical spectrum of all possibilities (100%). All things are relative : nothing exists in isolation.

"Nothing exists in isolation. In fact, all beings and phenomena exist only because of their relationship with other beings or phenomena.” ― Jeff Ourvan, Quora

BothAnd :
One sense of “non-dual” is the opposite of Cartesian dualism, in which body & soul are completely different kinds of stuff. But if everything is made of Mind, or Consciousness, or Information — as assumed in Panpsychism — then Mind is simply the natural-but-immaterial function of the material Brain. Quantum theory is a materialistic version of non-duality. It views the world as made of continuous mathematical Fields of potential. Within their defining field, pairs of quantum particles may become entangled, and act as one, or vice-versa, fluid waves may also be discrete particles . Unfortunately, such BothAnd (wave/particle) constructs are difficult for our macro-sensing brains to imagine.
https://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page62.html

Ontological objective idealism has less weaknesses and unlikely to be undermined rather than subjective idealism which again leads to solipsism

I think it’s as simple as that but forgive me if I have not considered further berkelian defences of subjective idealism..

You can't have overhead mental Ideality without its substrate of material Reality. — Gnomon

Quite right, but the OP asks for arguments for ontological, not epistemological, idealism. Are you objecting to "ideality" as prior to – independent of – "non-ideality" and thereby also rejecting the premise of the OP?

Ontological objective idealism has less weaknesses and unlikely to be undermined rather than subjective idealism which again leads to solipsism — invicta

Arguments for or against Idealism are complicated by the several definitions of the term, and variations within those definitions*1 *2. Since I have no formal training in philosophy, I'll have to stick to naive Idealism (the map is not the territory) and naive Realism (there is something out there that our senses are reporting). The objective aspect of both is our shared myths of reality : a> religious stories about an extrasensory spirit realm, and b> scientific reports about the invisible structure of the material world. From Kant to Quant we have been admonished that "Reality is not what you think it is"*3

So I have to be cautious about taking a firm stand on the mushy foundations of reality, especially as revealed by subatomic science. When I take a step on the ground, I expect that it will support my weight. But Quantum physics tells me -- and I only have this knowledge second hand -- that the atoms below are 99% empty space. So the "support" comes from counteracting weak forces between my feel-real shoes and the supposedly real ground. My intuitive model of the ground is solid, even though intellectually I "know" that it is porous. But my mental map of reality "works" most of the time. It's only quantum theorists who must work with an un-real mathematical model of reality, dominated by invisible forces instead of solid matter, and undermined by the interventions of observers .

The Objectivist Creed of modern science aspired to replace divine revelation for perfect knowledge of Reality with a collective consensus on what's what*4. And I am grateful for the harvest of practical insights, due to that divorce from religion. But the Objectivist Myth*5 was watered-down by the new statistical models (mathematical instead of material) of subatomic physics. What used to be fundamental to reality is now known to be a mere possibility prior to our measurement of its realness. Faced with such perversions of Classical Reality, what's a naive boy to do?

So, my personal position on Reality is like a wave/particle : BothAnd*6. The world is not Either Real or Ideal, but a blend of both mental & material aspects. Its wave-nature is continuous & statistical, while its particle-nature is discrete & physical. Reality is whatever works for me at the moment. Ideality is a possible state that exists only as a concept. Like the dream of seeing a man walking on the moon, ideas can become real. :smile:


*1. Objective idealism is a form of metaphysical idealism that accepts Naïve realism but rejects epiphenomenalist materialism, as opposed to subjective idealism denies that material objects exist independently of human perception and thus stands opposed to both realism and naturalism. ___Wikipedia

*2. What are the two types of idealism? :
Thus, the two basic forms of idealism are metaphysical idealism, which asserts the ideality of reality, and epistemological idealism, which holds that in the knowledge process the mind can grasp only the psychic or that its objects are conditioned by their perceptibility.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/idealism
Note -- My interpretation of Hoffman's theory is neither subjective nor objective idealism, but merely that there are practical evolved limits on perception; so he advises : know thy limits.

*3. Reality is not what it seems :
Physicist Carlo Rovelli's book on quantum gravity
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/02/01/512798209/reality-is-not-what-we-can-see

*4. Copenhagen Interpretation :
An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality. Although quantum mechanics has held up to rigorous and extremely precise tests in an extraordinarily broad range of experiments, there exist a number of contending schools of thought over their interpretation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

*5, Objectivist Myth :
Scientific Objectivism replaces the prayerful Priest with an empirical Expert
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-objectivist-myth-of-knowing_fig1_254734289

*6. Both/And Principle :
*** My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
*** This principle is also similar to the concept of Superposition in sub-atomic physics. In this ambiguous state a particle has no fixed identity until “observed” by an outside system. For example, in a Quantum Computer, a Qubit has a value of all possible fractions between 1 & 0. Therefore, you could say that it is both 1 and 0.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

IS THE MOON REAL WHEN I'M NOT WALKING ON IT?

It seems the term naturalism is a bit vague (see this SEP article). I think we should explicate what we mean by the term. When I used naturalism in response to your comment, I used it as a synonym to physicalism, which according to the SEP article is correct for a fully-fledged ontological naturalism. As for how ontological naturalism compares to methodological naturalism, I am bit confused.

The SEP article says the former is a claim about reality, while the latter is a claim about the practice of science and philosophy. I interpret the latter as asserting "we can only know of the natural", without asserting the non-existence of the supernatural. This then makes the relation between ontological naturalism and methodological naturalism that of the relation between ontological and epistemological idealism.

So, what do you mean by naturalism, ontological naturalism, etc.?

This sounds like a complication. An object is an idea regardless of the subjects experience? Why postulate an object which can (perhaps) never be encountered by a subject and also claim its ontological status beforehand? — Manuel

Objective idealism is not postulating an object that can (perhaps) never be encountered by a subject. It is saying that there is an all-experiencing subject (often equated with God), who thus gives rise to all of reality. This is a way to explain the regularity of experience, and its apparent independence of our will. I cannot will a glass to levitate, nor can I will to see or unsee the sky with open eyes directed at it. My experience evolves in a regular way beyond my control. In order to explain this, we can say that existence is not predicated on any one, finite experiencer, but rather, on every experiencer (though, to different degrees). The experiencer that experiences everything is God. Taken together with the idea that the experiencer is the medium of experience, we thus arrive at Kastrup's idea of everything being a part of the mind of God; we could be explained as the dream avatars in God's dream. I say God out of convenience here; Kastrup uses a far less loaded term; mind at large.

Also, as a side note: this all might seem very theistically loaded. I just want to say that personally, I am agnostic, and all the views espoused here are not views I hold (although I do lean towards them more than their alternatives). Furthermore, Bernando Kastrup does not advocate for the equivocation of his mind at large with God, given that he believes the mind at large does not possess meta-cognition.

Why can't idealism be monist? One could speak of the different aspects of the mental. — Manuel

You misunderstood my paragraph, which is understandable, due to my clunky chain negatives of which I take on faith to be even number xD. But yeah, I was saying the opposite; idealism is by definition a substance monism (at least, those are the definitions I've encountered).

There is a sense in which the self is an illusion, or rather, a fiction, in Hume's phrase. But beyond our own conditions of having selves, to extend that to objects and attribute to them this aspect of "self", is not warranted, regardless of ones ontology. — Manuel

I did not talk about the possibility of attributing self to objects. Instead, I was talking about the possibility of no self. It is an extremely counter-intuitive possibility, but what if reality just is? Physicalists are capable of positing objects with subjects, which means the notion of a subject-less theater of objects is already posited. Now, the theater of objects surrounding "you" is what you have defined as the subjective theater; but what is it about the objects around you that necessitate the existence of a subject? Why cannot it simply be reality?

Such a view has to contend with the experience of a subject however; it does that by saying that such experience is always indirect. That is, we have thoughts of being a self, but what evidence is that? Cannot a piece of paper proclaim itself as belong to a self? Thus, cannot a subject-less though proclaim itself to be belonging to a subject?

In my kind of style of epistemological idealism, I do not conceptualize the world that way: I do not concede that the senses are of something independent of them. — Bob Ross

I see. Would you say your style of epistemological idealism is really just ontological idealism, but based on epistemological grounds instead of ontological grounds? That is, on a first-order level, you assert only the mental exist, but on a second-order level, you assert this assertion is not certain, but rather the best assertion; as opposed to a purely ontological idealism, which would assert the sole existence of the mental on all orders.

Personally, I advocate for using the standard definitions. If the above paragraph is a correct description of your views, I would then refer to your view as epistemologically motivated ontological idealism. One must separate the contents of an axiom from its motivation, lest they be confused.

Objective idealism is not postulating an object that can (perhaps) never be encountered by a subject. It is saying that there is an all-experiencing subject (often equated with God), who thus gives rise to all of reality — Ø implies everything

Could it also be seen as saying that the ideas, forms and principles that comprise the fundamental elements of reason are invariant, and so are grasped by all minds in the same way?

For the sake of this discussion, by nature I mean the universe.

For consistency and coherence sakes, methodological naturalism (i.e. using aspects of nature in order to describe and explain aspects of nature) presupposes ontological naturalism (i.e. structural/causal relations immanent to nature).

I wonder, why do you find idealism conceptually unparsimonious, and why do you find naturalism more cogent? — Ø implies everything

I think naturalism is more cogent because, as a speculative paradigm, it is more consistent with common sense (i.e. practical, or embodied, participation in nature) than idealism. I find naturalism parsimonious because it does not additionally assume that 'ideas transcend (i.e. constitute) nature' as idealism (re: ideality) does. As ontologies, however, both naturalism & idealism are monistic (though, as I discern it, 'idealism conflates epistemology with ontology', implying fallaciously that 'all there is is what we (can) know').

The way I categorize objective idealism and subjective idealism is the following way:

You, under no hallucination, look at a tree, and then you look away. Does the tree still exist?

"No," says the subjective idealist.
"Potentially", says the objective idealist, "Because someone might still be looking at the tree."

An objective idealist who asserts there are certain laws to reality, which is typically the aim of objective idealism (and coupling of idealism with empiricism and logic), would likely answer: "Most likely, because there is no reason to believe I was hallucinating. Trees do not just poof out of existence (because of this and that law of nature), and thus, since my recent experience of it necessitates its existence, someone must still be looking at it." But who is looking at it? If you assert the existence of comprehensive, idealist reality that spans every place/object that has ever been experienced, whatever form those places/objects may take now, then you must assert some distributed awareness across all of reality.

You could say the difference between the weaker and stronger form of objective idealism that I just delineated is that the former says there is something objective out there, due to the existence of other conscious observers. The latter does that, and then also specifies what is objective. In so doing, the latter form typically requires an entity often equated to God, whereas the former could say all that is objective exists purely inter-subjectively between finite, normal subjects. Thus, to arrive at this:

Could it also be seen as saying that the ideas, forms and principles that comprise the fundamental elements of reason are invariant, and so are grasped by all minds in the same way? — Wayfarer

One must, in addition to claiming the existence of the objective, one must specify that the above is also objective. So, to answer your question; objective idealism does not necessitate the above be objective, but it typically would.

I would not say ontological naturalism is in alignment with common sense. I believe dualism is the most common-sensical notion among laypeople, and ontological naturalism is in alignment with more scientifically-minded people.

Also, when considering common sense as a factor in theory creation, it ought to be tempered. The degree of common-sensicality of the assertion itself should be taken together with the degrees of common-sensicality of its consequences. Furthermore, common sense is arbitrarily shaped by culture, even if it is perhaps constrained on a deeper, neurological level. Thus, one ought to consider whether an assertion's alternatives could be considered equally common-sensical in a different culture (which would be, of course, considerations steeped with uncertainty). I believe objective idealism, in a different culture, would be just as common-sensical as dualism is in our current culture, and more common-sensical than ontological naturalism is in our current culture.

Perhaps a historicist's perspective is due here? I wonder if the theists of the past thought that reality was all in the mind of God, thus asserting an objective idealism?

What do you mean by “empty set of assumptions”? — Bob Ross

No assumptions; from an absolutely skeptical standpoint. It may seem impossible to derive any propositions from no assumptions, but I believe I have. Nothing significant (yet) though.

What do you mean by “realizing restrictions on causality”? Idealism eliminates the possibility of causality: there is no physical interaction analogous to a physicalist worldview. — Bob Ross

In an objective idealism, there can be. If you, in addition to your idealist assumption, assume a regularity in reality (laws of nature), and a distributive awareness (God, mind at large, the simulator(s), etc.), then you can arrive back at science. Now, in such a framework, you'll have causality; and if it is restrictive enough, it will deny the possibility of non-mental objects interacting with your framework's solely mental reality.

I compared naturalism to idealism, not "dualism". Also, I did not mention "common sense as a factor in theory creation".

Hello 0 implies everything,

I see. Would you say your style of epistemological idealism is really just ontological idealism, but based on epistemological grounds instead of ontological grounds? That is, on a first-order level, you assert only the mental exist, but on a second-order level, you assert this assertion is not certain, but rather the best assertion; as opposed to a purely ontological idealism, which would assert the sole existence of the mental on all orders.

That is a fair assessment. I don’t really consider myself making a standard ontological argument for idealism because I am agnostic as to if there is a truly a physical substance; but I do know that it is, by my lights, indistinguishable from an empty concept—it thereby is still technically possible; and, yes, it is motivated heavily by epistemological idealism: I basically argue that there is no legitimate reason to hold there is an indirect “consciousness-independent” object when one’s “representations” could be 0% accurate (and they never come in contact with anything non-mental ever nor is it possible as a conscious being). Even if I could somehow go outside of my conscious experience and know that there is truly a physical substance of some sort, then I would still say that for conscious beings emergent therefrom they would have zero justification to think there actually is a physical substance.

Personally, I advocate for using the standard definitions. If the above paragraph is a correct description of your views, I would then refer to your view as epistemologically motivated ontological idealism. One must separate the contents of an axiom from its motivation, lest they be confused.

I have never heard of that term, but, yes, that seems to fit nicely!

No assumptions; from an absolutely skeptical standpoint. It may seem impossible to derive any propositions from no assumptions, but I believe I have. Nothing significant (yet) though.

Oh, I see. Have you looked into a priori knowledge?

In an objective idealism, there can be. If you, in addition to your idealist assumption, assume a regularity in reality (laws of nature), and a distributive awareness (God, mind at large, the simulator(s), etc.), then you can arrive back at science. Now, in such a framework, you'll have causality; and if it is restrictive enough, it will deny the possibility of non-mental objects interacting with your framework's solely mental reality.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but to me “causality” has been reserved for ‘interaction’ in a physical sense in the literature; but in the sense you just described there would be no ‘interaction’ other than mental events (e.g., the laws of nature are Ideas, platonic forms, etc. in the mind of God), which you are calling ‘causality’, which I don’t have any issue with (in the sense of defining 'causality' as simply a realist position pertaining to the 'cause' of sensations being objective).

Also, have you read George Berkeley’s idealism? If not, I think you may find it an interesting read.

Bob

What are some good ontological/logical arguments for ontological idealism? — Ø implies everything

I try to prove idealism "via negativa" by demonstrating the incoherence of materialism.

Idealism acknowledges that all points of view depend on viewing.
Even materialism is a point of view. Therefore materialism is sub-category of idealism (if that makes sense. Maybe not worded the best way)

It's kind of like the difference between the first person and third person point of view.
When you close your eyes and just focus on your sense of existing that's kind of like the pure subjective first person.
On the other hand, if you open your eyes and look around the world, you're viewing everything from a third person perspective, but this third person POV takes place from the first person perspective. You can't escape the first person and achieve some ultimate transcendent third person objectivity.
If you could view all of existence from the Eye of God, and this God views without any bias, it would still be an experience from the highest view rather than something independent of first personhood.

In a sense idealism isn't a particular point of view but rather the recognition that any and all views involve viewing.

Your 'argument' equivocates the word "view", thereby conflating/confusing conception and perception.

↪HarryHarry Your 'argument' equivocate the word "view", thereby conflating/confusing conception and perception. — 180 Proof

Do you mean I equivocate POV (concept) with viewing (perception)?
How those relate and which one is primary is another difficult question.
On the other hand, the hard problem remains of what objective matter can be independent of conception or perception.
We have examples of matter being conceptualized into apparent existence. We do this in dreams.
How the mind converts mentality into the experience of perceiving objects in 3d space is a metaphysical rather than a physics question. Metaphysics by definition is prior to physics.
Trying to understand the physics of consciousness is a category error, like trying to perceive a number or principle with the senses.
I see it as proceeding like this
Consciousness first, then conception, then the co-arising of perception and objects perceived.
I don't see how objects lead to concepts and concepts to consciousness. Then again I don't see how consciousness creates concepts either. Either view has something popping into existence.

Edit:
A materialist can say that an idealist is equovicating ' things' with perception or conception. An idealist can say that the materialist is confusing the concept of a thing for a thing in itself independent of conception/consciousness.
How do we determine which is making the error?
It's tricky because each argues from a different metaphysics, making any argument circular or appearing like a conflation.

Bernardo Kastrupt's "The Idea of the World," throws together most of the best arguments against mainstream physicalism in an easy to follow, analytical style. I believe all the chapters are available in free peer reviewed journals; that was a goal of his in making the book, although they are edited to flow better in the book. He also has a lot of video lectures, but I can't speak to those.

I thought the early part of the book was pretty solid. The arguments are not all new, but he lays them out with a good deal of clarity. He mostly focuses on problems with physicalism. I thought his arguments against panpsychism, and information ontology/"it from bit" or similar "mathematical/computational universe" ontologies are rather weak, tilting at strawmen to some degree, but they really aren't the focus anyhow.

The big points he has are:
>All scientific knowledge comes from sensory experience, which is a part mental life.

>All evidence that sensory experience misleads us comes from other sensory experience, so the idea that mental experience is inherently untrustworthy is itself self-undermining. If you say "there aren't really chairs and tables like you see, but rather quantum fields and standing waves," such a statement is still based on a combination of empirical observations and logical reasoning that have both occured in mental life and are only known to human beings through mental life.

>Scientific models are maps of our world made for predicting mental experience. The map is not the territory. All scientific models only exist within first person experience. Saying the external world is made of scientific models or terms from them is like saying a pond is made of ripples, i.e. the model is subsumed in the larger body of the "pond of first person experience," so the pond/experience is ontologically more primitive than the model.

>Importantly, none of this invalidates the findings of science. Science is an epistemological system for predicting and explaining the world. However, science has no ontological commitments. Science can be true as a description of mental phenomena in a mental universe as easily as it can be true of some sort of physical universe. Much of the second half of the book is advancing a plausible ontology of how an entirely mental universe can explain empirical science, but essentially the claim is that chairs, quarks, quasars are all "out there" from our perspective, but comprised mental substance.

The biggest problem with the above is that Kastrupt leaves out that, even given physicalism is the case, we should expect the epistemological problems he points out to exist anyhow, and the illusion of his version idealism to exist. Whether or not it is coherent to have an "in-principle unobservable" substratum of being, and all the problems that come with positing one is another matter, but this seems like a plausible rebuttal to his critiques.

IMO the critiques of physicalism are much more successful than the replacement ontology he offers up in the second half. The replacement ontology relies on this appeal to rare multiple personality disorders that seems like a stretch. Also, his claims that AI can't exist and that only life has consciousness is very ad hoc and doesn't address the dicey issue of cyborgs and hybots, i.e., how much biological material does a robot-organism need to be considered alive and thus conscious? Given this, what about consciousness causes something to be alive or vice versa? The whole dissociative bubble we're all supposed to be in, which explains why I don't have your sensations, seems like a "too cute" brute fact to me.

The theory also seems confused in offering up the universe as a potential source of distributed cognition (although he does say this is highly speculative), but then appears to be rejecting the possibility of non-living things being part of smaller distributed consciousnesses (e.g. states and corporations) in a way that seems arbitrary.

The parts on quantum mechanics are rigorous enough, but fall into the problem of offering up information in support of the thesis, but not all the counter arguments. I understand sometimes putting your best arguments forward and leaving it at that for brevity, but it's not a style I like. Certainly, there are explanations of QM that still leave a single "objective" reality, they just increasingly have to come with extra baggage that can seem implausible to the extent that you need to claim all scientists' measurements are predetermined by the initial conditions of the universe so as to come out "just so," and avoid problems with Bell's Inequalities (i.e. free choice and locality seem like they might both need to be dropped to keep objectivity, but even this is not universally accepted).

The final critique I have is that it leaves out some of the best arguments against physicalism. It avoids the more nuanced, philosophical debate on if there is actually a coherent way to define physicalism. You can catch these on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on physicalism though. Wish I had a better source, because that article is dense.

That said, arguments against physicalism aren't necessarily arguments for idealism. However, it seems like the most compelling default if you are forced to reject the former. I liked the book, it's worth checking out.

:up: Thank you.

Metaphysics by definition is prior to physics. — HarryHarry

This is not how Aristotle conceived and taught his First Philosophy with respect to his Physics. The word 'metaphysics' literally means 'the book after the book on physics'. It is meant to consist of categorical generalizations about nature derived from studying the many domains and particularities of nature. In other words, one must know nature (i.e. physics) in order to understand the principles / limits of physics (i.e. metaphysics). I'm no Aristotlean (I'm much more of an Epicurean-Spinozist) but I'm sure Plato's best – most renown – pupil didn't put the metaphysical cart before the physical horse. That's clearly a modern idealist's (or p0m0's) mistake. :smirk:

I don't think you can put one necessarily before the other. The relationship is often circular. For example, metaphysics deals with how we think about empirical data, and so in that respect it is, in some ways, prior to the empirical sciences, although the empirical sciences obviously can inform our metaphysics on this point as well.

Metaphysics seems prior on one point. For the sciences to be informative, we need to believe that the world is rational and that we can understand this rationality. If one thing does not follow from another, no cause entails any effect, even stochastically, then science cannot work. Obviously, the success of the sciences is a big piece of evidence that this presupposition is correct, but it still seems it must come prior to the sciences.

After all, there is no point in appealing to statistical analyses and mathematical "laws," in nature if we live in a world where 1 + 1 can come out to six or the charge of an electron varies day to day randomly. Hume's problem of induction is another issue that must be either resolved or set aside before scientific inquiry can begin, i.e. you have to at least pragmatically assume that induction is valid (deduction as well, since mathematics is essential).

Metaphysics also seems prior in ontology in that the claim that empirical findings are caused by a different level of being than the one in which they occur (i.e. that findings are caused by a physical world even though they can only be accessed mentally) isn't something that can be proven or disproven by empiricism on its own, since by definition all empirical data comes through subjective experience. You can say that experience shows that such an inaccessible level of being is likely, but any such claim is going to have to also rely on non-empirical evidence.

Leaving aside arguments that a metaphysically bare science is impossible, what would such a bare science look like? A set of observations subjected to analysis, probably using the maximum entropy principal. Such a science would simply say: if information I is collected from observations of system S then here are the observations we should expect to observe in the future vis-á-vis S. It only needs to extrapolate future observations from past ones; positing entities or realities is unnecessary. There is no physical world here, and no mental one, since claiming observations are mental when the entire universe of inquiry only includes observations makes the term contentless in this context.

I don't know if this could ever work in practice, but this is essentially how AI hypothesis crunching models work.

(I'm an Epicurean-Spinozist — 180 Proof

Wasn't Spinoza an idealist in all but name? At the very least, isn't his metaphysics compatible with "being is perception"? I don't see how matter as divine immanence can be closer to ontological naturalism (which has no concept of immanence) than to idealism for which immanence is a tautological truth.

As for Epicurus, as an empirically minded philosopher, didn't he stress the epistemic primacy, if not ontological primacy of sense-data? I'm also not seeing any real points of disagreement between the ontological arguments of Berkleley and Epircurus, save for whatever brand of atomic materialism Epircurus might have subscribed to, (which at most would amount to a physics disagreement with Berkeley , as opposed to a metaphysics disagreement). If both are understood to be empiricists who rejected Platonism, then how is metaphysical disagreement between them possible?

I

Wasn't Spinoza an idealist in all but name? — sime

Spinoza isn't "an idealist" according to my reading.

As for Epicurus, as an empirically minded philosopher, didn't he stress the epistemic primacy, if not ontological primacy of sense-data?

Yes.

I'm also not seeing any real points of disagreement between the ontological arguments of Berkleley and Epircurus.

I can't help you with that. :sweat:

Bit of an aside: I find it funny how often Aristotle's ordering of physics vs metaphysics comes up in all sorts of discussions and texts on this point given the guy probably didn't even order the books himself. Not a dig at anyone, I've seen it referenced in plenty of books too.

Like Hegel, a lot of Aristotle appears to be lecture notes dutifully compiled by students and mixed in with additions by the students to fill them out.

Hello Count Timothy von Icarus,

Thank you for the elaboration on Bernardo Kastrupt’s “The Idea of the World”! I cannot say I have read it, but I will (eventually).

To be honest, I didn’t find anything in your post that I disagreed with, so let me try to build off of it (and you tell me what you think).

As an introduction, I think that when one takes on the mantle of discovering the ontology of the world (regardless of whether they come at it from a more idealistic or materialistic perspective) they should come to the same conclusion (which, I think coincides with how you also think that under physicalism we would still expect to be stuck in the same idealistic illusion as outlined in your post): first-order (ontological) idealism and second-order (ontological) agnosticism.

In order to even discover the ontology of the world, I think that we must understanding our approach, as it is going to heavily decide our conclusions; and I suggest that we fundamentally split the ontology of the world into two sub-ontologies: first-order (i.e., the structure of reality within first-person experience) and second-order (i.e., the structure of reality at “rock bottom”).

Since we are first-person experiencers (i.e., conscious beings), we must start our investigation within the first-order, and use that ontology to attempt to decipher the second, deeper ontology (I would argue). Within the first-order ontology (of reality), I think you have done a great job of outlining (generally) why idealism is true: we, as first-person experiencers, are always working with mentality—i.e., always within consciousness. Science only gives us better models of how to navigate the “mental territory”, but never tells us anything ontologically. However, this does not entail that what fundamentally exists is just mentality: that is a second-order concern.

As second-order ontology (of reality), which consists of whatever the fundamental “stuff” of reality may be and what exists thereof, I find that the only legitimate response is agnosticism. We are essentially trapped in the first-order ontological idealism, and we have no means of deciphering anything being that (once we properly understand the first-order ontology [of reality] itself).

I look forward to your response,
Bob

We are so Cartesian.

Yes, riddled with that and many other dualistic cliches...can we escape it discursively?

IMO the critiques of physicalism are much more successful than the replacement ontology he offers up in the second half. The replacement ontology relies on this appeal to rare multiple personality disorders that seems like a stretch. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with this. Kastrup has taken an old song and is having a lot of success playing it to a new tune. His replacement ontology seems to want it both ways: everything is mental, but there's an "outside" world where evolution somehow still works. How are there any random events in an idealistic reality?