It's worth watching the video I posted a couple of times, Is Reality Real? The opening line is, 'is there an external reality? Of course there is an external reality! We just don't see it as it is.'

Then have a look at Mind and the Cosmic Order, by Charles Pinter. Chapter 1 abstract is:

Let’s begin with a thought-experiment: Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.

Note the similarity with my ‘meadow’ analogy.

So that's the sense in which I'm 'anti-realist' - it's because I recognise that what we take to be inherently real is, let’s say, a representation that has been re-constituted by our cognitive system. According to Arthur Schopenhauer, in the opening paragraph of WWI, recognising this is ‘the beginning of wisdom’. And I think it’s validated by cognitive science, although they may of course have a completely different view of the philosophical implications.

Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.

But Pinter's featureless stuff here is empty of content. This is close to Hobbes' view, who took only matter in motion to be real (independent).

The cause of Sense, is the Externall Body, or Object, which presseth the organ proper to each Sense, either immediatly, as in the Tast and Touch; or mediately, as in Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of Nerves, and other strings, and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the Brain, and Heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart, to deliver it self: which endeavour because Outward, seemeth to be some matter without. And this Seeming, or Fancy, is that which men call sense; and consisteth, as to the Eye, in a Light, or Colour Figured; To the Eare, in a Sound; To the Nostrill, in an Odour; To the Tongue and Palat, in a Savour; and to the rest of the body, in Heat, Cold, Hardnesse, Softnesse, and such other qualities, as we discern by Feeling. All which qualities called Sensible, are in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversly. Neither in us that are pressed, are they anything els, but divers motions; (for motion, produceth nothing but motion.) But their apparence to us is Fancy, the same waking, that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they could not bee severed from them, as by glasses, and in Ecchoes by reflection, wee see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; the apparence, in another. And though at some certain distance, the reall, and very object seem invested with the fancy it begets in us; Yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another. So that Sense in all cases, is nothing els but originall fancy, caused (as I have said) by the pressure, that is, by the motion, of externall things upon our Eyes, Eares, and other organs thereunto ordained. — Leviathan, close to the beginning

What is 'original fancy' ? How has Hobbes and has ilk got around human cognition ? Matter in motion seems very much based on visual and tactile perception. Kant was 'right' in some sense to put everything on the side of the subject, right up to the Hegelian edge.

Idealism is just a rejection of the independence of impenetrability, space, time and emergent phenomena, yet often proposed by people who thinks they have asserted anything what so ever of their own, by imagining that the "mind" could be a substance when the very essence which depicts it hinges on being dual to something different from itself, something different from mind. — Julian August

:up:

I think your 'rejection approach' is good. The word 'idealism' will be difficult or impossible to rescue, but I like Hegel's understanding thereof:

The proposition that the finite is ideal [ideell] constitutes idealism. The idealism of philosophy consists in nothing else than in recognizing that the finite has no veritable being. Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is actually carried out.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlbeing.htm

Another way to put this is that the lifeworld (the whole of experience) is a kind of unbreakable unity, a continuous flow. We can analyze it, but plucking out an object and a subject, for instance, is engaging in something like useful fiction. The subject (as you seem to point out) is part of a dyad, and part of 'experience.' But if the subject is not absolute or fundamental, it's not even 'experience' anymore but just what is.

Yes, we are self-reflexive (i.e. strange looping phenomenal-self-modeling) objects in which this self-reflexivity is completely transparent making each of us the "subject" of a narrative delusion (i.e. ideality, or supernatura) that s/he is not – is ontologically separate from – objects (i.e. reality, or natura). — 180 Proof

:up:

Perhaps you can share any thought you might have on Spinoza's perspectivism, and connections to Wittgenstein's 'I am my world.' https://iep.utm.edu/spino-ep/#SH2b

He retains his substance monism by affirming the existence of the great variety of ways humans, and moreover all beings, can have knowledge as being so many ways God expresses himself. If all ways of knowing are ways God is known, then God himself, insofar as he is absolutely self-causal and self-expressive, would have to thereby know himself through and as all the different ways he is known. Therefore, from the perspective of God, God knows himself in an infinity of ways, while we, in our everyday existence and from our finite perspective, are just so many of these infinite ways God can both inadequately and adequately know all of reality as himself. — link

https://iep.utm.edu/spino-ep/#SH2b

I tend to understand this in terms of the 'subjects' being 'views' on a single Nature --- being Nature-from-an-embodied-in-Nature-perspective. Nature is 'painted' ( lit up, revealed ) by 'subjectivity' as if God was a cubist.

Subjectivity is light as the being or possibility of color, or something like that.

But Pinter's featureless stuff here is empty of content — plaque flag

Of course! That's the point!

In a universe without an observer having a purpose, you cannot have facts. As you may judge from this, a fact is something far more complex than it appears to be at first sight. In order for a fact to exist, it must be preceded by a segmentation of the world into separate things, and requires a brain that is able to extract it from the background in which it is immersed*. Moreover, this brain must have the power to conceive in Gestalts, because in order to perceive its outlines and extract it, a fact must be seen whole, together with some of its context.

A fact does not exist if it has not been articulated, that is, if it does not exist explicitly as a verbal entity sufficiently detailed that it can be made to correspond (approximately) to something in the external world. Facts don’t exist in the absence of their statement (because a statement cuts the fact out of the background), and the statement cannot exist apart from an agent with a purpose. When an intentional agent sets out to carve a specific object from the background world, he has a Gestalt concept of the object—and from the latter, he acts to carve the object out. Thus, a fact cannot exist in a universe without living observers.

A fact does not hold in the universe if it has not been explicitly formulated. That should be obvious, because a fact is specific. In other words, statements-of-fact are produced by living observers, and thereby come into existence as a result of being constructed. It is only after they have been constructed (in words or symbols) that facts come to exist. Commonsense wisdom holds the opposite view: It holds that facts exist in the universe regardless of whether anyone notices them, and irrespective of whether they have been articulated in words. You may now judge for yourself if that is true. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 93). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition

Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p. 93). Springer International Publishing. Kindle Edition.

*That is what I mean by 'existence being complex'. It's a manifold, not an off/on phenomenon.

So, facts come into being with us. Not 'the universe', but there is no meaningful sense of existence in the universe prior to this act of formulation (as naturalism never tires of telling us).

Of course! That's the point! — Wayfarer

But you seem (to me) to be flitting from position to position. Either it makes sense to talk about some object apart from all subjectivity or it doesn't. Kant seemed to feel the need to glue on an empty concept, to get distance from Berkeley. But I think he should have just embraced the perspectivism implicit in most of his thinking.

Plenty of materialists (like Hobbes) are indirect realists. If you are (now) only saying that appearance is not reality, then how is that different from the usual dualistic scientism ? 'The table is really [latest physics theory stuff]. ' Or 'love is really just [brain chemistry].'
But physics stuff (I think we agree) is only meaningful within a lifeworld like ours. It makes no sense to say the world is really [some mere aspect or fragment of that world. ]

So, facts come into being with us. Not 'the universe', but there is no meaningful sense of existence in the universe prior to this act of formulation (as naturalism never tires of telling us). — Wayfarer

I sometimes think our views are pretty close, but your insistence on the pure subject seems to require a pure object (the ever-hidden-from-us world-in-itself.) @Leontiskos joked that he couldn't tell our positions apart (including J.S. Mill), but there is a difference. I think I'm defendning a nondual monist perspectivism, while you are defending some kind of still-dualist twist on Kant. But I may not understand you (and our views are naturally evolving as we talk and think.)

Here's a key point:
Permanent possibilities of perception turn out, in my view, to be pretty much all most people can and do mean by some [ mind- ] independent world.

What we mean when we say the mountain was here before us as a species is something like : if we could somehow visit with a time machine, we'd see the same old mountain. Kant discusses the possibility of beings on the moon in CPR, and notes that asserting their existence involves implicitly asserting the possibility of perceiving those beings. So experience is the foundation of sense. FWIW, this seems very close to Husserl's view. And phenomenology can be viewed as primarily negative and critical, as Wittgensteinian 'critique of language,' pointing out (like Kant) our tendency to talk in round squares and light without darkness.

Here's Locke's version of what's maybe the classic dualism of modern (subject-centered) philosophy. Note that Kant (in one dimension) merely radicalized his influences, making even matter in motion part of appearance (depending, as it does, on time and space).

To discover the nature of our IDEAS the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient to distinguish them AS THEY ARE IDEAS OR PERCEPTIONS IN OUR MINDS; and AS THEY ARE MODIFICATIONS OF MATTER IN THE BODIES THAT CAUSE SUCH PERCEPTIONS IN US: that so we may not think (as perhaps usually is done) that they are exactly the images and resemblances of something inherent in the subject; most of those of sensation being in the mind no more the likeness of something existing without us, than the names that stand for them are the likeness of our ideas, which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite in us.

11. How Bodies produce Ideas in us.

The next thing to be considered is, how bodies operate one upon another; and that is manifestly by impulse, and nothing else. It being impossible to conceive that body should operate on WHAT IT DOES NOT TOUCH (which is all one as to imagine it can operate where it is not), or when it does touch, operate any other way than by motion.

12. By motions, external, and in our organism.

If then external objects be not united to our minds when they produce ideas therein; and yet we perceive these ORIGINAL qualities in such of them as singly fall under our senses, it is evident that some motion must be thence continued by our nerves, or animal spirits, by some parts of our bodies, to the brains or the seat of sensation, there to produce in our minds the particular ideas we have of them. And since the extension, figure, number, and motion of bodies of an observable bigness, may be perceived at a distance by the sight, it is evident some singly imperceptible bodies must come from them; to the eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion; which produces these ideas which we have of them in us.
...
15. Ideas of primary Qualities are Resemblances; of secondary, not.

From whence I think it easy to draw this observation,—that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves, but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas, existing in the bodies themselves. They are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us: and what is sweet, blue, or warm in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts, in the bodies themselves, which we call so. — Locke

This is how the physical study of primary qualities escapes being a mere study of appearance. Reality in its fullness is filtered for purity. The gray result is stripped of color and value. What's left Newtonian machinery abandoned by Deism's demiurge -- blobs of stuff that bump into one another in the void.

Your argument is well-made, but I actually disagree. I actually have a thread drafted on why epistemology is always posterior to metaphysics, but I don't know if it will ever see the light of day. — Leontiskos

I agree that epistemology is always posterior to metaphysics, so perhaps you have drawn the wrong conclusion from my argument. In your glass analogy, metaphysics would be the discipline by which we understand the glass, which is "being" in general, and of which perspective is a feature. This would lay the grounds for epistemology.

The extremely truncated argument is that it comes down to which of the two is more known: 1) That we know things (as they are), or 2) That there is a glassy perspective. Whichever is less-known must be funneled through that which is more-known, and the modern assumption is that (2) is more-known and that we must therefore begin with epistemology. I don't think that will work. Will I ever get around to addressing this more fully in its own thread? I don't know. :sweat: — Leontiskos

The problem though, which I tried to describe, is that we need principles by which we can make the judgement, 1) or 2), and these are metaphysical principles, derived from the philosophy of being. If we premise either 1) or 2), we proceed with an epistemology accordingly, but whatever is your argument for choosing one over the other is a metaphysical argument.

(Another argument is that if our understanding is 'flawed', then our understanding of our understanding will also be 'flawed'. We can't fix (or necessarily perceive) the flaw in our understanding by reflexively applying our understanding to our understanding. Any uncertainty deriving from the faculty of the intellect will color both internal and external objects.) — Leontiskos

You say that we cannot "fix" the flaw by understanding our understanding, but this is exactly what we do in practise, to improve ourselves, we repair flaws in our understanding. That understanding of understanding would be an analysis of our methods, procedures and techniques. The method is the means, the goal is the end. The analysis reveals the relation between means and ends.

Initially, the end shapes the means, such that the means are designed to produce the end. However, the means can then be characterized as becoming habits, and the propensity to follow habits produces a special relationship between the agent and the end, whereby the specific end which the means are designed for is "locked in" as the desired end. In habituation the relevance, importance, or even necessity of the end, is completely neglected because satisfaction is guaranteed by the means. In this way, (habituation), the means now determine the ends by crippling our capacity to freely choose our goals. We act in the habitual way, we are satisfied, therefore we do not question the ends and the forms of satisfaction which the habits provide for us.

Notice though, that I referred to a special type of goal, the ideal, as perfection. I said that it was the ideal, perfection as a goal, which cannot be obtained by the human intellect. So the goal then is not to "fix" the understanding, but to improve upon it, in relation to the ideal, which is perfection. This is a big difference, because "fix" implies to put the system in an unchanging state of best operation, while leaving the system open to improvement implies something completely different. So the ideal, the perfect condition, as a goal, takes a position higher than any possible real condition, allowing that the goals, or ends, do not become fixed by habituation, in the manner described above. This allows that the goals or ends which our methods of understanding conform to, can always be reassessed, in relation to an ideal which will always stand higher than the end which the means currently provide for, and the ends will not get "locked in" by a habit which was once good, but is now bad, due to changing circumstances.

Well for Aristotle and Aquinas the intellect is immaterial for precisely the reason you are outlining. But on the other hand, matter qua matter (or qua singular) is not intelligible on Aristotelianism, but only matter qua property (or qua universal). So Aristotle would not be surprised that something like the quantum realm begins to approach unintelligibility. — Leontiskos

I agree, "matter" is posited by Aristotle for the purpose of accounting for that feature of reality which we cannot grasp, the part of reality which appears as unintelligible. This is derived from Plato's Timaeus. The "form" of a thing, being the universal for Plato, what the thing is, must necessarily be prior to the existence of the thing as the determining factor of what type of thing the thing will be, when the thing comes into existence. But each corporeal thing, each particular, or individual (primary substance in Aristotle's terms), is unique and peculiar as represented by the law of identity. So the reality of those "accidents" which make the individual unique and peculiar, must be accounted for. The "accidents" are fundamentally unintelligible to us, or else they could be accounted for by our understanding of the "form" of the thing. So the accidents are what escape our grasp, our apprehension of the thing, and "matter" is assigned as that which is responsible for this unintelligibility.

I don't begrudge you your conclusion, because it is a reasonable inference. Yet recall that for Aquinas we will know God "perfectly" (as perfectly as we can) not only in the intermediate state, but also in the resurrected state. And in the resurrected state we will have a body of some kind. — Leontiskos

I disagree that Aquinas believed we would "have a body of some kind" in the resurrected state. But of course there would be ambiguity providing different interpretations on this matter because Aquinas often had to stretch his ontology to appear consistent with Church dogma. Paul had insisted on personal resurrection, which would imply a material body to account for individuality. Aquinas also held that each spiritual incorporeal being, each angel, had providence over a corporeal body, so "will have a body of some kind" could also be interpreted as an incorporeal being having providence over a body.

Let's consider the case of bona fide COVID vaccines vs quack cures such as hydroxychloroquine. Scientific studies show that the former are effective and the latter not. That is because of the inherent properties of the real vaccines, which the quack cures do not possess. — Wayfarer

I think you are stretching the meaning of "inherent properties" here. When you say that the vaccines are effective because of the inherent properties of these vaccines, that is only half the story. The other half is the inherent properties of the virus itself. Now we might say that the vaccines are effective because there is a relationship between the inherent properties of the vaccine, in relation to the inherent properties of the virus.

However, notice that this is just a sort of assumption we make, that if two things react, there is a relationship between their "inherent properties". But it doesn't require that we know anything about their so-called inherent properties, nor does it even require that we really know what "inherent property" refers to. In reality, "inherent property" just stands to signify what we do not know. The two react, and you as the narrator do not know why or how, so you simply employ that place holder, "inherent properties" to talk about what you do not know. The scientists would not use that place holder, they would talk about mRNA and proteins, immune system, etc., because they have more knowledge about this than us.

The scientific studies show that the vaccines are effective, and the quack cures are not. They also show a whole lot about the interaction between the vaccines and the virus. But notice that the human immune system is the medium between these two, the arena or theatre where this interaction plays out. And in reality the human immune system is the principal role player here. This means that my proposal above, that there is a special relation between the inherent properties of the vaccine and the inherent properties of the virus, is completely wrong, because it totally neglects the agency of the immune system. And so we have an open door for the placebo effect and such things. Therefore it appears like it is this procedure, of using terms like "inherent properties" to cover over what is unknown, and create an illusion of knowledge which is really detrimental and misleading.

So none of this open and shut. As the closing quote says in the essay ''Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.’ — Wayfarer

This is very good and well-written. But ultimately it comes down to a question of what is implied by "re-presentation" here. Notice the difference of intent implied by the difference between "representation" and "re-presentation". The former implies correspondence, the latter implies a presentation with intent. This marks the difference between holding truth as your guiding principle (ideal), and having pragmatics as your guide. Notice that pragmaticism removes the need for an ideal, perfection. If it serves the purpose at hand, it is good, and there is no need, or inspiration, to better it. But when we are looking for "truth", it becomes an ideal perfection, so the inspiration to improve is ever present, regardless of whether we think the absolute will ever be obtained.

'We just don't see it as it is.' — Wayfarer

This is precisely what we are disagreeing on. The disagreement is somewhat subtle, so at times I am characterizing it in a somewhat imprecise way to get it to pop out. For example, my imprecision seems to have led you, at some points, to think that I impute to you a belief that external reality does not exist at all. But <again>, I am not saying that. The disagreement is over whether we can know external reality as it is in itself.

Then have a look at Mind and the Cosmic Order, by Charles Pinter. Chapter 1 abstract is: — Wayfarer

Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape...

This is precisely what I argued against, beginning <here>. In that post I explicitly disagreed with Pinter's claim that objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, and you agreed with my argument. We agreed that unobserved boulders have shape. Or rather, so as not to put words in your mouth, you said, "It's safe to assume."

I agree with @plaque flag here:

But you seem (to me) to be flitting from position to position. Either it makes sense to talk about some object apart from all subjectivity or it doesn't. — plaque flag

Compare:

But you seem to be holding to two conflicting principles. Either the mind can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself, or it cannot. — Leontiskos

Note that I am not saying that every mind always knows mind-independent reality as it is in itself. Only that the mind can so know it.

Hello ,

I'm sort of planning an exit strategy so that I can take some time away, and for that reason I'm trying not to initiate a lot of new dialogues. For example, with Wayfarer I have teased at the idea of adjudication, but it would be imprudent for me to go there in full, given my increasing time constraints. So maybe what I will do is just try to situate my view vis-a-vis your own. In general I am unsure about your first unanswered reply (), but I agree with most of your second ().

So for example, in your second unanswered reply you say that, "We see things themselves, not our images of them," but in your first you say that all we can mean by an independent world is "permanent possibilities of perception." I am then led to wonder whether that possibility of perception, when engaged, effects an actualization of perception, such that we are really encountering a perception/image rather than the thing itself. For me the possibility of perception is derivative on the thing that exists in itself. The thing is more than a possibility of perception, even though we always know by means of perception. ...But then given what you say <here> I think we might be on the same page, and I may just be splitting hairs.

Let me go out on a limb and try to characterize our difference, which is probably negligible for the purposes of this thread. I want to say that you are a "direct realist" with an immanent anthropology, whereas I am a "direct realist" with a transcendent anthropology. I am thinking in particular of your claim that, "the subject is world-from-a-point-of-view" (). I want to say that the soul ultimately transcends and encompasses the world, and is not metaphysically co-extensive with it. So the subject is the world from a point of view, but it is at the same time more than that. It is not only world-from-a-point-of-view. Do we even disagree on that? (I am also willing to toy with the idea that intellect is able to obtain a universal or rather quasi-universal point of view, which is I think what much of philosophy and science is interested in.)

Granted, that's a rather tiny difference, so maybe it's not even worth raising. Maybe it will create more problems than it's worth. :sweat:

I would not agree that Kant thinks our cognitions distort reality. — Janus

And the scare quotes were precisely for you, because of how you responded to my comment in a different thread:

So it's the idea that knowledge of the world is possible, and this knowledge is not automatically contaminated, distorted, or even conditioned by the human subject. — Leontiskos

There you fixated on contamination and distortion, ignoring conditioning. Anti-Realists certainly hold that reality is conditioned by the human subject. Imputation of or fixation on distortion tends to beg the question, but it is ultimately pertinent given that we are considering the possibility of knowing reality as it is in itself. Thus it is a distortion in relation to that counterfactual possibility.

How can it be extrapolated? That a person's psychological, social, economical situation is also a type of topography?
— baker

Well, I would like to suggest that social and psychological situations along with social constructs are all real, but I don't have that map to hand, if there is one. Humans are territory rather than map, is more my point, whereas physics is map. — unenlightened

I like the idea with topography, but it's not clear how morality and normativity can be worked out with it.

But you seem to be holding to two conflicting principles. Either the mind can know mind-independent reality as it is in itself, or it cannot. If it cannot, then there is always a reason to deny the existence of external objects a la post-Kantian philosophy (thus modern philosophy is intrinsically bound up with solipsism). If it can, then reality does not have an inextricably mental aspect a la western science.

I'm just not sure if the bolded part follows here. It seems more like the reverse conclusion should be true.

If:
1. The mind cannot know mind independent reality.
2. Mind independent reality exists.

Then it seems to follow that the unknowable mind independent reality, the noumena, are a part of the world that is not inextricably tied up in mind.

Whereas this isn't a problem if mind independent reality can be known. If mind independent reality can be known, than at least in some way, it isn't mind independent. The mind can access it.

And nature itself doesn't seem to be discrete from itself. There are no "totally isolated systems," and it seems likely that there are no unique "substances," without beginning or end, just one substance (this is the goal of unification anyhow). This being the case, divisions within nature are simply abstractions. They are based on real differences in nature, which we have knowledge of, but in an important way the universe is one undivided process. But if that's the case, and if mind is in the universe, then it is indeed impossible to extricate mind from the world in an important way.

Obviously, there are ways in which we can extricate mind from (parts of) the world, as when we say "that rock is not conscious." But this is a separation via abstraction, which doesn't seem like it should "cause" any real ontological separation. It's just like how our ability to separate the sweetness of honey from the honey doesn't entail that honey isn't sweet. In the rock example, the rock is part of a unified process that includes mind. Further, since mind knows of the rock, clearly the rock is actually involved in mind in some way

So all of the universe is involved in the process of mind to some degree in that mind would not be here if the universe was not. We are cognizant of "the whole universe," when we have these discussions, another relation. And the universe would have different properties if mind wasn't possible, since clearly it has properties vis-á-vis its interactions with mind.

For me the possibility of perception is derivative on the thing that exists in itself. The thing is more than a possibility of perception, even though we always know by means of perception. ...But then given what you say <here> I think we might be on the same page, and I may just be splitting hairs. — Leontiskos

Husserl's notion of the transcendence of the object is helpful here. Sartre opens B&N with it (does a great job). The spatial object is never finally or completely given. I'm quite happy to understand the object as some kind of ideal unity of its possible 'adumbrations.'

Reality is 'horizonal.' I speak too easily of the being of the world when it's better perhaps to stress its fluid endless becoming. I'd say I have a kind of continuous blanket ontology, with all things inferentially linked. Brandom's inferentialism was a recent, powerful influence on me, which allowed me to see how all objects are glued together in one nexus of rationality -- a single network of entities that appear interdependently for their very sense in our reason-giving sociality.

I agree that epistemology is always posterior to metaphysics, so perhaps you have drawn the wrong conclusion from my argument. In your glass analogy, metaphysics would be the discipline by which we understand the glass, which is "being" in general, and of which perspective is a feature. This would lay the grounds for epistemology. — Metaphysician Undercover

...but whatever is your argument for choosing one over the other is a metaphysical argument. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good, then we agree. I was mistaken. :up:

You say that we cannot "fix" the flaw by understanding our understanding, but this is exactly what we do in practise, to improve ourselves, we repair flaws in our understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, we fix flaws in concrete acts of understanding, but not foundational flaws in the faculty of understanding (the intellect).

In this way, (habituation), the means now determine the ends by crippling our capacity to freely choose our goals. We act in the habitual way, we are satisfied, therefore we do not question the ends and the forms of satisfaction which the habits provide for us. — Metaphysician Undercover

True.

Notice though, that I referred to a special type of goal, the ideal, as perfection. I said that it was the ideal, perfection as a goal, which cannot be obtained by the human intellect. So the goal then is not to "fix" the understanding, but to improve upon it, in relation to the ideal... — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. My point was only that if one accepts the premise that the faculty of the intellect itself is inherently incapable of knowing reality as it is in itself, then no amount of self-reflection or epistemological work will change that fact. I think we are in agreement.

I agree, "matter" is posited by Aristotle for the purpose of accounting for that feature of reality which we cannot grasp, the part of reality which appears as unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right. Sorry that I don't have enough time to go into these sorts of topics.

I disagree that Aquinas believed we would "have a body of some kind" in the resurrected state. But of course there would be ambiguity providing different interpretations on this matter because Aquinas often had to stretch his ontology to appear consistent with Church dogma. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well he at least says that we will have a resurrected body in the third part of the Summa Theologiae, questions 53-56, as well as in questions 75-86 of the supplement of that work.

:up:

Cuz I can’t make heads or tails out of self-knowledge. — Mww

A guy once broke up with me and he stated as his reason, and I quote, "I question the wisdom of continuing a relationship with someone who barely knows herself".

Somehow, "self-knowledge" tends to be about thinking of yourself the way someone else wants you to think of yourself.

Sometimes it seems to me that the quest to gain glimpses of transcendence is more about self-aggrandizement or a kind of metaphysical tourism. — Tom Storm

Yes. And to control the masses, of course.



We fool you.

Husserl's notion of the transcendence of the object is helpful here. Sartre opens B&N with it (does a great job). The spatial object is never finally or completely given. I'm quite happy to understand the object as some kind of ideal unity of its possible 'adumbrations.' — plaque flag

Okay, sure. I have no truck with this sort of phenomenological approach. Makes sense to me.

Reality is 'horizonal.' I speak too easily of the being of the world when it's better perhaps to stress its fluid endless becoming. I'd say I have a kind of continuous blanket ontology, with all thinks inferentially linked. — plaque flag

:up:

One of the important features of the paper is that it isn’t trying to posit consciousness as an ineffable, inner sanctum. On the contrary, Bitbol emphasizes the irreducibly intersubjective nature of experience.

“…objectivity arises from a universally accepted procedure of intersubjective debate. — Joshs

How does Bitbol account for the possible power differential in such debates?

For example, a teacher and a student may have a debate in class, but because of the power differential between them, the student will tailor her input to the debate for fear of getting a poor grade (or worse). As such, the debate is automatically slanted in favor of the teacher.

The same pattern repeats all over in other settings.

This intersubjective construction of objectivity is what phenomenology is about , not ‘introspection ’, which is a common misunderstanding of its method. — Joshs

Great point!

How does phenomenology explain the existence of disagreement between people? And how does it propose that disagreement be resolved?

Whereas this isn't a problem if mind independent reality can be known. If mind independent reality can be known, than at least in some way, it isn't mind independent. The mind can access it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Earlier in the thread I gestured towards a possible equivocation on "mind-independent reality," but here it is occurring explicitly. Note that if you define "mind-independent reality" in this way, then my hypothesis that "the mind can know mind-independent reality" would be incoherent.

So to be clear, when I am talking about knowing mind-independent reality, I am talking about knowing things whose existence is distinct and unrelated to mind. Your claim that <If a reality can be known, then it is not mind-independent> is therefore neither here nor there. I don't think anyone in the thread has been conceiving of "mind-independent reality" in this way.

Going off now on a psychological tangent, the other thing is that I think that underlying these 'materialism vs idealism' debates is very often a concern that things should be a certain way, in accordance with what various people want to be the case. So, there are affective concerns at work behind the scenes, otherwise these questions would not be so compelling, having, as they do little to no practical significance for our everyday lives. It seems that some folk on both sides of the debate see these questions as representing a battle between the forces of good and evil, or at least enlightenment and endarkenment, that will determine the fate of humankind. — Janus

It's about more than merely affective concerns: It's about normativity.

The traditional focus on objectivity can also be seen as an effort to establish normativity. Epistemic normativity, psychological normativity, and especially moral normativity.

Allowing for subjectivity and perspectivism (as in: individualism) in any way undermines the very notion of an objective, binding system of moral claims about what is right and about what is wrong.

Under this, subjectivity is acceptable only in a trivial sense: "it's in an individual brain that all these processes happen".

I want to say that the soul ultimately transcends and encompasses the world, and is not metaphysically co-extensive with it. So the subject is the world from a point of view, but it is at the same time more than that. It is not only world-from-a-point-of-view. Do we even disagree on that? — Leontiskos

For me the world includes promises and daydreams and prime numbers, as well as protons and pumpkins. The lifeworld with all of its cultural structure is fundamental. It's only within this world (famously sketched by Heidegger) that physics or biology can make sense in the first place, though people (absurdly in my view) think they can put the cart before the horse. To me a map is some little piece of reality that 'mirrors' some structure or aspect of a larger piece. There is no 'deep' appearence-reality distinction but only various practical discriminations -- the kind of thing Mach talks about, such as the boundaries of the ego being merely practical. I mention this in case you thought I reduced the subject to a limited kind of worldly being.

- Sounds right; I agree. :up: It seems like we are pretty close, but I'm sure we'll manage to find something to argue about one day. :razz:

(I am also willing to toy with the idea that intellect is able to obtain a universal or rather quasi-universal point of view, which is I think what much of philosophy and science is interested in.) — Leontiskos

I think we agree on this. I see intellectual progress as movement in perspective space, which is also [largely ] character space. We become the universal person, but perhaps Jungian individuation is helpful here too, and we also develop unique gifts, complementing the gifts of others. I think maybe both processes run side by side. As we find ourselves a fitting role in the world, including the mirror, we are less afraid or resentful of the gifts of others. We learn to open up to others' perspectives, to identity with the process of learning rather than the result, with a way of being rather than a claim on ideological turf. So yeah I agree. The goal is toward that point at infinity, the impossibly adequate grasp. Horizon again. And Husserl and Merleau-Ponty also talked about being perpetual beginners, always going back to the fundamental experiences and questions, in love with philosophy.

There you fixated on contamination and distortion, ignoring conditioning. Anti-Realists certainly hold that reality is conditioned by the human subject. Imputation of or fixation on distortion tends to beg the question, but it is ultimately pertinent given that we are considering the possibility of knowing reality as it is in itself. Thus it is a distortion in relation to that counterfactual possibility. — Leontiskos

I would have thought that reality as it is in itself cannot be known in principle, because reality as it is in itself is defined by its not being reality as it appears to us. It's an imaginable conceptual distinction. On this definition it follows that anything we know is not reality as it is in itself.

But I don't consider reality as it appears to us to be any less real than reality as it is in itself. Reality as it appears to us is a function of reality as it is in itself, because reality as it appears to us is on account of the effect the environment has on us precognitively.

In the lived moment we are blind to that process; the best we can do is observe and analyze the environment and our physiologies as they appear to be. So, I'm saying that appearances are real, as real as what gives rise to them, and more real for us, given that we can only think of the in itself, we cannot know how it is.

Sounds right; I agree. :up: It seems like we are pretty close, but I'm sure we'll manage to find something to argue about one day. :razz: — Leontiskos

:up:

Nice to hear ! It's not as easy as one might like it to be to feel understand on an internet forum.

What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth. (That, I contend, is the major source of 'scientism' and a major weakness of naturalism, generally.) — Wayfarer

I think this is so by design, because otherwise, any kind of normativity is impossible. And without normativity, society and culture are impossible.

I’m careful to explain that I’m not claiming that things go into and out of existence depending on whether they’re being perceived,

but that, absent an observer, whatever exists is unintelligible and meaningless as a matter of fact and principle. — Wayfarer

How do you propose to build a system of morality based on the above idea?

Husserl's notion of the transcendence of the object is helpful here. — plaque flag

As also his depiction of 'the natural attitude', which I see as the basis the objections thus far:

From a phenomenological perspective, in everyday life, we see the objects of our experience such as physical objects, other people, and even ideas as simply real and straightforwardly existent. In other words, they are “just there.” We don’t question their existence; we view them as facts.

When we leave our house in the morning, we take the objects we see around us as simply real, factual things—this tree, neighboring buildings, cars, etc. This attitude or perspective, which is usually unrecognized as a perspective, Edmund Husserl terms the “natural attitude” or the “natural theoretical attitude.”

When Husserl uses the word “natural” to describe this attitude, he doesn’t mean that it is “good” (or bad), he means simply that this way of seeing reflects an “everyday” or “ordinary” way of being-in-the-world. When I see the world within this natural attitude, I am solely aware of what is factually present to me. My surrounding world, viewed naturally, is the familiar world, the domain of my everyday life. Why is this a problem?

From a phenomenological perspective, this naturalizing attitude conceals a profound naïveté. Husserl claimed that “being” can never be collapsed entirely into being in the empirical world: any instance of actual being, he argued, is necessarily encountered upon a horizon that encompasses facticity but is larger than facticity. Indeed, the very sense of facts of consciousness as such, from a phenomenological perspective, depends on a wider horizon of consciousness that usually remains unexamined. — Key Ideas in Phenomenology

I explicitly disagreed with Pinter's claim that objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, and you agreed with my argument. We agreed that unobserved boulders have shape. Or rather, so as not to put words in your mouth, you said, "It's safe to assume." — Leontiskos

'No features', is the expression Charles Pinter uses - shape being one. Features correspond to functions of the animal sensorium, but this thesis is developed over several chapters, and not one I can summarise in a few words.

I acknowledge at the outset that the universe pre-exists us: 'though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective.'

I think it's the idea of 'an implicit perspective' that you're calling into question.

I would have thought that knowing reality as it is in itself cannot be known in principle, because reality as it is in itself is defined by its nor being reality as it appears to us. On this definition it follows that anything we know is not reality as it is in itself.

But I don't consider reality as it appears to us to be any less real than reality as it is in itself. Reality as it appears to us is a function of reality as it is in itself, because reality as it appears to us is on account of the effect the environment has on us precognitively. — Janus

So let's apply this to a practical example:

When the critics of Trump and his followers make claims about them, they (ie. the critics) believe that they are making claims about how things really are.


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