Some are born blind even, but that's no good reason to reject the reality of visible things. Colours are partly created by the biology of various visual systems, and partly by the properties of the light or the surfaces that reflect it. For example, a clear sky in daylight is disposed to be seen as blue by any animal with the appropriate visual system, because of the causal relations between the wavelength of the light and the biology of the visual systems. Granted that some lack the ability, but again, that's no reason to reject the reality of the conditions under which the sky is seen as blue.The colours we 'know' are created by our biology. Other animals see different colours, less or more than humans. Or none. If this realism, it is not external to human experince. — Tom Storm
Granted that some lack the ability, but again, that's no reason to reject the reality of the conditions under which the sky is seen as blue. — jkop
If accepting logic is ultimately up to you, then logic is just an opinion. Since you get from logic the hypothesis of the existence of an external world, then that hypothesis is an opinion as well.Logic, being (in the context Im taking it) a closed system, doesn't need to be 'checked'. Its either accepted or not — AmadeusD
How can we trust reason and logic, given that we have no way to assess them without using them again? How can I trust my brain, since I have no way to assess it without making itself in charge of making the assessment, without giving it the responsibility of assessing itself? — Angelo Cannata
The definition "external", which is outside of our minds itself is inside our minds because it is a definition formed of a sentence, and the words "external" and "outside" are both concept, which are all internal to us. Hence, claiming that they are outside of us is incorrect.3. The external world is, by definition, “external,” which is outside our minds.
Therefore:
4. Because everything we know exists in our minds, we can not have any knowledge about the external world.
I’m no logician, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve somehow bungled the argument and I welcome anyone’s help in formulating it correctly. However, if this argument essentially satisfies the skeptic’s point, then it seems that the skeptic is contradicting him/herself by making a claim about the external world. — Thales
the external world , whose origin growth and structure we have been, throughout this book, investigating, is the Mirror of the Mind and the Map of Knowledge in one...In an immediate and direct way, the mind can never know itself it can only know itself through the mediation of an external world, know that what it sees in the external world is its own reflection. (Collingwood, Speculum Mentis) — Pantagruel
:cool: :up:Exactly. — Pantagruel
I agree, but the questioning of common sense realism is often limited to a superficial or willful rejection, perhaps because it just seems too banal or mundane for an intellectual to take seriously.It’s common sense to believe what we observe is real but anything common sense is worth questioning. — Tom Storm
almost all of us behave as realists the moment we engage with what we know as the external world. Even the idealists. — Tom Storm
But all we know about our "external world" is through our senses and our experiences. Saying that we can't know anything because all we have is our senses is self-contradictory and makes no sense.“We can never know anything about an external world because all we have when we make such an assertion is our perceptions and reasoning, all of which occur in our minds. We can not get ‘outside of our perceptions’ to make any claims about the external world.” — Thales
If accepting logic is ultimately up to you, then logic is just an opinion. — Angelo Cannata
This seems to confirm my idea that philosophy is, or should be, art. — Angelo Cannata
This way logic is just a particular way of expressing and sharing our subjective, artistic, emotions and feelings. — Angelo Cannata
Who establishes that it is not an opinion?Logic, is not an opinion — AmadeusD
Who establishes that it is not an opinion?
Saying that logic is not an opinion implies that you can validate its correctness without using your brain. — Angelo Cannata
Can you give evidence that 2+2=4 without using your brain — Angelo Cannata
Who guarantees that the final conclusion made by our brain is correct? — Angelo Cannata
On the contrary, your brain is doing everything: it interprets the presence of the eggs, it counts them, it calculates them, draws conclusions and, finally, you used it to write your message. This is actually the essential problem of realists: they decide to ignore their involvement in whatever they think and say, as if what they think and say was something fallen from the heavens and they were invisible and non-existent. This is also the essence of all tricks made by magicians: they try to convince you that what you are seeing is just reality, without any interference of them.So, that's not my brain doing anything — AmadeusD
I don't think 'precognitively' is accurate. We aren't affected by anything but sensation. The sensation is not the things in the external world. — AmadeusD
Presented to the mind. But only sensuous data is presented - not objects. (having come back to add this, I think we're probably agreeing there?) — AmadeusD
Is this to say that there is, in fact, a direct link between our impressions and whatsoever caused them? I think that can be inferred, because otherwise we couldn't have cognition on this account. But, that isn't to say there's anything superficially the same about htem. I think that's the issue i'm trying to zoom in on. The 'external' object never appears to us, in any way. — AmadeusD
Oh. I'm really sorry if it's come across that I'm denying an external world/external objects. It just requires that we have zero access to them and cannot gain access to them. My account requires them to exist, though. I think that covers the remainder of your post lol. — AmadeusD
The same way, like a magician, you are trying to convince me that, in calculating that the eggs are four, your brain has done nothing! Who decided that they are four then? — Angelo Cannata
In cognition or perception, we encounter things which appear to be external to our bodies. For examples, we see animals, trees, mountains, clouds we don;t see sensations. We infer that these things are presented to us via sensations, but we are conscious only of the things, not of the sensations that we infer preoduced our awareness of the things, — Janus
not of the sensations that we infer preoduced our awareness of the things, — Janus
Again, my view is that we are presented with objects, not with "sensuous data", the latter idea is an after the fact interpretation, so I don't think we are agreeing. — Janus
I think all our experience makes plausible the idea that our perceptions are caused by the actions of things and environmental conditions on our senses. — Janus
The actions themselves never appear to us in vivo — Janus
the external objects do — Janus
how it is we could have an idea of an external world/ external objects if we had "zero access to them"? — Janus
No need to apologize, we are both just presenting ideas. — Janus
Because we can assume we wouldn't get any cognition of objects without their being 'actual' objects, given how we understand our sense organs to work. We can't get cognitions out of nowhere.. so we infer (and, rightly, imo) that there simply must be something 'out there' bumping against our sense organs to produce the data which is interpreted to give us our cognitions. — AmadeusD
I think the plausible account is that we have access to external objects insofar as they can appear to us via our senses, but no access to understanding their natures beyond that. — Janus
Could your account be coming down to a position that the External Object and the cognition of it are adequately the same as queried above? If so, I can accept that account - but I just can't find good reason to believe it other than shared cognitions (i.e, an apple looks like an apple to 99.9% of people). — AmadeusD
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