Anything that "is not objectively real" is, of course, "conceivable" — 180 Proof
I agree with you about chasing enlightenment being very often a cult of the self — Janus
I can’t make heads or tails out of self-knowledge. — Mww
I would have hoped that a Philosophy Forum might be a place to discuss such endeavours, although there are always quite a few tourist members. — Wayfarer
I'm not sure what you mean by "objectively existent" or "objectivity". Please clarify what makes this "criterion" problematic.Accordingly, 'objectively existent' is not the sole criterion for what is real. — Wayfarer
I'm not sure what you mean by "objectively existent" or "objectivity". Please clarify what makes this "criterion" problematic. — 180 Proof
Also, do you reject what I (briefly) say on the thread "What is real?" ... — 180 Proof
what you are saying, Wayf, is too unclear for me to respond — 180 Proof
Unless solipsism obtains, mind is dependent on (ergo, inseparable from) More/Other-than-mind, no? and that "experience" consists of phenomenal traces (or outputs) of the 'entangled, or reflexive, interactivity' of mind with More/Other-than-mind? — 180 Proof
absent an observer, whatever exists is unintelligible and meaningless as a matter of fact and principle. — Wayfarer
So do we agree that the cup, unobserved in the cupboard, still has a handle? I'm going to take it that we do, that the cup in the cupboard is not the sort of thing that you are talking about as "absent an observer". — Banno
Quite simply, swapping places does not imply swapping perspectives, because the unique particularities of the being brings a lot to the perspective. If swapping perspectives was just a matter of swapping places, you could take a dog's perspective, or a cat's perspective, by taking that creature's place. But this is all wrong. And that is why "walking in someone else's shoes" is a matter of understanding the other person, not a matter of swapping physical positions. — Metaphysician Undercover
Whatever experience we have or knowledge we possess, it always occurs to a subject — a subject which only ever appears as us, as subject, not to us, as object. — Wayfarer
The following analogical argument is obviously wrong (or is it?):
You cannot look at a landscape except from a point of view.
Therefore the landscape is constituted by (or created by) your point of view.
So the question is either: what is the crucial difference in the case of empirical reality in general (as opposed to a landscape) that turns the argument into a good one; or what are the missing premises? — Jamal
:up:the objective world is an abstract theoretical construct, and to arrive at the real, one has 'to put' back the subjectivity that has been discounted. — unenlightened
For it doesn't matter if I believe that a eating a rotten apple is healthy, the reality of illness will follow. If it were the case that there was nothing underlying to model on, then there would never be any contradictions to the models we create. — Philosophim
You cannot look at a landscape except from a point of view.
Therefore the landscape is constituted by (or created by) your point of view. — Jamal
Logic is ours not mine. We always intend the one and only 'landscape.' — plaque flag
So the question is either: what is the crucial difference in the case of empirical reality in general (as opposed to a landscape) that turns the argument into a good one; or what are the missing premises? — Jamal
Q: What is 'the myth of the given' in Sellars?
A. In traditional empiricism, sensory experiences (or "sense data") were thought to provide a direct, foundational basis for knowledge. This foundation was "given" to the mind in a direct, unmediated fashion. From these basic sensory experiences, the mind could then build more complex structures of knowledge.
Sellars criticized this view by arguing against the idea that there are immediate and self-justifying foundations for our beliefs. He challenged the notion that sensory experiences could serve as a non-conceptual, unmediated foundation for knowledge. In essence, he argued that what we often take to be raw, uninterpreted sensory data are already shaped and structured by our conceptual framework.
For Sellars, all knowledge is mediated by concepts, and there is no direct, unmediated access to the world. Even our most basic perceptual experiences are informed by a backdrop of concepts, beliefs, and prior knowledge. Thus, to treat any part of our knowledge as simply "given" without the influence of concepts or beliefs is a mistake. This idea is encapsulated in his critique of "the myth of the given."
What I said was that 'empirical reality in general is not solely constituted by objects and their relations but has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis' - thereby pointing out a lack or absence in the empirical account, namely, the inextricably mental. Doesn't that address your question? — Wayfarer
isn’t there a tension between the claim that the mental aspect of empirical reality is not revealed empirically, and your appeal to cognitive science? — Jamal
Kant’s transcendental subject is a kind of vanishing point, not a real mind. — Jamal
Whatever experience we have or knowledge we possess, it always occurs to a subject — a subject which only ever appears as us, as subject, not to us, as object.' — Wayfarer
It's not just me then.…. — Tom Storm
When a crowd of people all observe a rocket bursting, they will ignore whatever there is reason to think peculiar and personal in their experience, and will not realize without an effort that there is any
private element in what they see. But they can, if necessary, become aware of these elements. One part of the crowd sees the rocket on the right, one on the left, and so on. Thus when each person's perception is studied in its fullness, and not in the abstract form which is most convenient for conveying information about the outside world, the perception becomes a datum for psychology. But although every physical datum is derived from a system of psychological data, the converse is not the case. Sensations resulting from a stimulus within the body will naturally not be felt by other people ; if I have a stomach-ache I am in no degree surprised to find that others are not similarly afflicted. — Russell
That is how language, mathematics, and all forms of communication are effective - they are part of a 'shared mindscape', so to speak, that have agreed references that we all understand. Or rather, that all those of our cultural type understand. — Wayfarer
But this is also why my approach is not solipsistic. When I say the world is 'mind-made' I don't mean made only by my mind, but is constituted by the shared reality of humankind, which is an irreducibly mental foundation. — Wayfarer
Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis ¹. Whatever experience we have or knowledge we possess, it always occurs to a subject — a subject which only ever appears as us, as subject, not to us, as object.' — Wayfarer
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/#TranEgoDiscInteInstead of a transcendental subject, the Ego must consequently be understood as a transcendent object similar to any other object, with the only difference that it is given to us through a particular kind of experience, i.e., reflection. The Ego, Sartre argues, “is outside, in the world. It is a being of the world, like the Ego of another” (Sartre 1936a [1957: 31; 2004: 1]).
When I run after a streetcar, when I look at the time, when I am absorbed in contemplating a portrait, there is no I. […] In fact I am plunged in the world of objects; it is they which constitute the unity of my consciousness; […] but me, I have disappeared; I have annihilated myself. There is no place for me on this level. (Sartre 1936a [1957: 49; 2004: 8])
When I run after the streetcar, my consciousness is absorbed in the relation to its intentional object, “the streetcar-having-to-be-overtaken”, and there is no trace of the “I” in such lived-experience. I do not need to be aware of my intention to take the streetcar, since the object itself appears as having-to-be-overtaken, and the subjective properties of my experience disappear in the intentional relation to the object. They are lived-through without any reference to the experiencing subject (or to the fact that this experience has to be experienced by someone). This particular feature derives from the diaphanousness of lived-experiences.
I think this is what the thread is suggesting; that the objective world is an abstract theoretical construct, and to arrive at the real, one has 'to put' back the subjectivity that has been discounted. — unenlightened
The subjectivist camp is right that the world is always given perspectively, but they don't squeeze enough juice from the fact that it's the world, our world that is so given. Logic is ours not mine. We always intend the one and only 'landscape.' — plaque flag
Is phenomenological research solipsistic research? Does it restrict the research to the individual I and, more precisely, to the area of its individual psychic phenomena? It is anything but this. Solus ipse — that would mean I alone exist or I disengage everything remaining of the world, excepting only myself and my psychic states and acts.
On the contrary, as a phenomenologist, I disengage myself just as I disengage everyone else and the entire world, and no less my psychic states and acts, which, as my states and acts, are precisely nature. One may say that the nonsensical epistemology of solipsism emerges when, being ignorant of the radical principle of the phenomenological reduction, yet similarly intent on suspending all transcendence, one confuses the psychological and the psychologistic immanence with the genuine phenomenological immanence. — Husserl
The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. — Fire Sermon
The interesting aspect of this type of thread, is that there is a significant number of hard realists who flatly refuse to acknowledge this need to put back the subjectivity, as required to have an honest approach to reality. Since these people think that "the real" can be arrived at simply by following the conventions, they are in great agreement with each other, and you'll see them on these threads, slapping each other on the back, giving thumbs up and high fives etc.. On the other hand, those who apprehend and agree with this need, "to put back the subjectivity" as a requirement for an approach to "the real", can never agree with each other as to how this ought to be done. This is because the very thing that they are arguing for, the need to respect the concrete base of subjectivity, as very real, and a very essential and true part of reality, is also the very same thing which manifests as the differences between us, which make agreement between us into a very difficult matter. — Metaphysician Undercover
Self-knowledge is a transcendental paralogism, a logical misstep of pure reason... — Mww
Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion.
— Fire Sermon — plaque flag
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