…..a problem with Kant's and similar views. (…) it seems that the 'ordered world' of experience arises from the 'interaction' between the mind and 'the mind-independent reality', which is never truly presented 'as it is itself' to the mind. — boundless
It seems in fact to assume that there is, indeed, a mind-independent reality which is then 'represented' by the cognitive faculties of the mind. — boundless
The 'represented' world of exprience is thus like an interface (…) and for the knowing subject it is impossible to know what the world is like independent from the mental categories. — boundless
….to the strict epistemic idealist, I would ask: how do you explain the 'arising' of the 'empirical/experienced world' without positing an intelligible mind-independent reality…. — boundless
More or less. My point is that in order to even think to follow and catch a ball, you need some interpretative mental faculties. Same goes for some basic innate concepts (like a basic notion of 'thing', 'change' and so on). — boundless
Well, yes, but my question is how to understand why the physical world is intelligible in the first place. A physcialist might well aswer as you do. It is just a 'brute fact'. But IMO it would be ironic. The very intelligibility of the world is left unexplained (and perhaps unexplainable). — boundless
that is, we get incredibly good predictions in the absence of an intelligible structure of reality. Weird. — boundless
There were no sensations in the universe before life came into being.Imagine 'how the world looks like' without any kind of sensations. — boundless
This seems to entail abandoning our innate sense of a world external to ourselves. If one really believed this, why wouldn't one stop interacting with the world we're allegedly imagining? Why eat? Why work?:
Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible... — Berkeley
I can infer something reasonable from this: making sense of the world will necessarily be in our own subjective terms. Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there. Understanding can only be from our perspective (it's like a non-verbal language - a set of concepts tied directly to our perceptions), but that doesn't mean it's a false understanding. And it has proven to be productiveTry to discover any sense in which you can still continue to speak of it, when all perception and feeling have been removed; or point out any fragment of its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not derived from and is not still relative to this source. When the experiment is made strictly, I can myself conceive of nothing else than the experienced. Anything, in no sense felt or perceived, becomes to me quite unmeaning. — Berkeley
It is a necessary fact that survival entails successful interaction with the external world. Our species happened to develop abstract reasoning, which provided a "language" for making sense of the world- a useful adaptation. There may very well be aspects of the world that are not intelligible to us. Quantum mechanics is not entirely intelligible -we have to make some mental leaps to accept it. If there's something deeper, it could worse.physicalism seems content to claim that intelligibility (which you assume here) is just a 'brute fact' that doesn't need to be explained. I disagree. So, for me, it isn't enough. — boundless
Exactly. We can consider a universal by employing the way of abstraction: consider multiple objects with a property in common, and mentally subtract the non-common features. This abstraction is a mental "object", not the universal itself.do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world? — boundless
What IS ontologically fundamental? Isn't it a brute fact? Even if it is mathematical, it's a brute fact that it's mathematical, and a brute fact as to the specific mathematical system that happens to exist.I do not deny the existence of a 'physical world', independent from our minds (i.e. which is not just mental content), but IMO it isn't ontologically fundamental.
A physicalist perspective is that we abstract mathematical relations which exist immanently. There are logical relations between the pseudo-objects (abstractions) in mathematics, and logic itself is nothing more than semantics.the ontological status of math/logic is actually important in this discussion.
Correct on both points.I don't think you are an anti-realist about universals....do you believe that universals/structure can be considered 'physical' because their 'existence' is immanent in the physical world?
to the strict epistemic idealist, I would ask: how do you explain the 'arising' of the 'empirical/experienced world' without positing an intelligible mind-independent reality (let's consider the minds here as those of sentient beings not some 'higher' Mind, which would in fact be, in a certain sense, a mind-indepedent reality, at least from the epistemic idealist point of view)? — boundless
Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material of existence, and there is no other material, actual or even possible...
— Berkeley
This seems to entail abandoning our innate sense of a world external to ourselves. If one really believed this, why wouldn't one stop interacting with the world we're allegedly imagining? Why eat? Why work? ....Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there. — Relativist
All that is objective, extended, active — that is to say, all that is material — is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction). But ...all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. To the assertion that thought is a modification of matter we may always, with equal right, oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the modification of the knowing subject, as its idea. — Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation
What IS ontologically fundamental? Isn't it a brute fact? Even if it is mathematical, it's a brute fact that it's mathematical, and a brute fact as to the specific mathematical system that happens to exist. — Relativist
The statement of my you refer to was discussing a physicalist point of view, and acknowledging that perceptions are not identical to reality (what is actually there). My point being that, although I do not buy into idealism, I do not insist we perceive reality as it is.Relativist: "Our perceptions entail only a reflection of reality, not reality itself. It is a perspective, but a perspective on what is actually there."
Bradley and Berkeley aside, I will take issue with what you say is 'actually there'. In line with what I've said above, your 'actually there' remains a conceptual construction or a sign. But physicalist philosophy overlooks this by regarding the 'testimony of sense' as indubitable. — Wayfarer
My objection is more basic: what is the big picture of reality under this theory? Does it actually account for anything? Does it just assume it's futile to consider a broad metaphysical theory? Physicalism offers an explanation for almost everything. Does idealism explain ANYTHING?You might protest that the object is not an idea, but an actuality. But this overlooks, or rather, takes for granted, the fact that any object you refer to is identified as such, named and thereby brought into the domain of name and form, otherwise it would not constitute an object. You and I both know what it is - look, it's a hammer. It's a chair. It's a qasar. It's a neuron - but the point stands. — Wayfarer
Peano Arithmetic seems to concern only natural numbers, and is not closed under a lot of operations. A lot more axioms are needed to move into extensions to natural numbers, and it still remains difficult to find a set of numbers which is closed under all operations. Complex numbers are not up to the task, but Octionians are. Problem with Octonians is that so many of the operations lack commutative, associative, and transitive properties.But once you say 2+2=4 you are now in into the realm of mathematics where different rules apply and 2+2=4 is not an absolute truth. Rather, 2+2=4 is only true within specific mathematical systems - most commonly Peano Arithmetic - where you start of with certain axioms and rules and then you can derive 2+2=4. — EricH
Most in fact, naturalism being one of them. Pretty much anything except materialism and idealism respectively.My problem with this is that there are also philosophical models that do not make any 'stance' about whether 'the physical' or 'the mental' is fundamental. — boundless
I am aware of this wording, but have never got it. How can a perspective not be first person by the thing having the perspective, even if it's a tree or a radio or whatever? Sure, it might not build a little internal model of the outside world or other similarities with the way we do it, but it's still first person.Some phenomenological approach conceptualize this by saying that the 'first-person perspective' (the 'mental') and the 'third-person perspective' (the 'physical') are not reducible to one another
I kind of lost track of the question. Classify the ontology of the first and third person ways of describing what might be classified as an observer?but you need to take both into account even if it is not possible to make a synthesis of them (think about 'complementarity' in QM). To none of them, however, an ontological status is actually granted. Both are ultimately 'point of views'.
How would you classify this? It is obviously not 'dualistic' in the sense that an ontologiy is not even presumed.
Me too. I struggled to find a more appropriate word and failed.Sort of agree. They are not 'parts' that we are composed of. That would be a 'materialistic' interpretation of principles and laws. But even saying that they are 'means' is wrong IMO. — boundless
OK, I can go with that, but it implies that 'stuff' is primary, interaction supervenes on that, and laws manifest from that interaction. I think interaction should be more primary, and only by interaction do the 'things' become meaningful. Where the 'laws' fit into that hierarchy is sketchy.I would say that they 'manifest' in the way physical stuff interact. If they weren't 'there', there would be no 'way' in which physical stuff would interact.
Depending on one's definition of being real, I don't agree here. A mind-independent definition of reality doesn't rely on describability. By other definitions, it does of course.I am not even sure that it even makes sense to think about an 'unstructured reality'. So, probably, this implies that, after all, intelligibility is something essential to anything real.
Sounds legit. All of it.If one posits that, say, the fundamental reality is, say, the Platonic 'world of Forms' it's possible to explain why the physical world presents to us regularities. They are, so to speak, 'moving images' of the Forms or 'manifestations' of them. And physical things are instantiations of the forms.
But materialism would simply assume that there is an 'order' in the world without having a conceptual category that explains it. Is being intelligible intrinsic/essential to be material? Is the 'order' material? — boundless
OK, got that.Assuming some kind of reality of mathematica and logical principles to make a case for the intelligibility of physical reality.
Good. You're not treating time differently than space. Being consistent goes a long way to being valid.Yes, I completely agree with it. — Wayfarer
I can think of counterexamples to that. Certain forms of BiV or simulation reality are not necessarily situated in an actual space that is being perceived. Sure, there is an embedded space and/or time, but that's not the space/time perceived. It might have say a different number of dimensions than the number presented to one's experience.You said you haven't read up on Kant, but he says something like this: space and time are not derived from experience (a posteriori), nor are they concepts, but rather they are the necessary, a priori conditions of experience. In other words, we cannot perceive or imagine anything without situating it in space and time.
First of all, I still think my title is poorly worded. I'm not asking if the apple would still be there if you were not. I'm more asking if the line between that which exists and that which doesn't is or is not drawn in some oberver independent way.You asked a rhetorical question in the thread title - 'Does anybody support a mind-independent reailty' - from what I'm seeing, the answer would be that you do. Would that be right?
He seems to be criticizing physicalism's inadequate account of thoughts and ideas Is that it? — Relativist
Does idealism explain ANYTHING? — Relativist
As for my stance on the first question, absent a me to observe the apple, it wouldn't exist relative to me, but it would still exist relative to the basket in which it sits. — noAxioms
The definition is a sort of relational version of the Eleatic principle. — noAxioms
Appeal? It's an inference. I believe the past is finite, which implies an initial state which exists by brute fact. Likewise, I believe there is a "bottom layer" of reality, not composed of anything simpler. Whatever it may be, it exists by brute fact. I don't see how any comprehensive metaphysics can avoid brute facts (and labeling it "necessary doesn't remove bruteness").The appeal to 'brute fact' seems convenient but is ultimately uninformative. — Wayfarer
That sounds absurd to me. Does he provide some epistemological assumption for this claim?No. He's saying - and he says it very clearly - that the world, objects, and things, ARE ideas. — Wayfarer
Agreed.Look at it from the perspective of cognitive science: cognitive sciences knows that what we instintively understand as the external world is generated by the h.sapiens brain. — Wayfarer
\Materialism as a philosophy, fails to take this into account, or ignores it.
I don't see a problem. Making sense of the world is necessarily going to be rooted in our nature. If bats were capable of abstract reasoning, the explanations they would generate would be rooted in their unique nature. These are perspectives, not falsehoods.Whatever presents itself to our senses 'has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and...active in time.' Space and time likewise are foundational neurological senses which allow us to orient ourselves and move around. They are real, but they also are built on an ineliminably (can't be eliminated) subjective basis.
Set physicalism aside, and focus specifically on what we perceive in the world. We naturally believe what perceive is real, including all the details delivered by our senses (the colors, smells, sounds, shapes, etc). Certainly the qualia are subjective, but they provide true information. A turd's stench is not an objective property of a turd, but it gives the true information that the turd is a turd, not a flower or food.Physicalism attributes to the objects of perception an inherent reality which they don't possess.
Materialism is an account of the world that is consistent with our perceptions and with science. What is his account of the world? How does its usefulness compare? Criticizing the deficiencies of materialism is not a justification for an alternative. It's useful only if we're seeking a "best explanation", in which case we need a real alternative to compare it to. If it's starting point is extreme skepticism about the external world, I see no utility to it.Hence, Schopenhauer's saying 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets herself.'
Look at it from the perspective of cognitive science: cognitive sciences knows that what we instintively understand as the external world is generated by the h.sapiens brain.
— Wayfarer
Agreed.
Materialism as a philosophy, fails to take this into account, or ignores it - Wayfarer
I disagree. Rather, physicalism's account of mental activity is deficient. Even it if justifies rejecting physicalism, it doesn't justify rejecting our innate basic beliefs that there is an external world that we perceive, and interact with. We naturally belief our perceptions of the world are true. What defeats these beliefs? — Relativist
What does modern science have to say about the nature of man? There are, of course, all sorts of disagreements and divergencies in the views of individual scientists. But I think it is true to say that one view is steadily gaining ground, so that it bids fair to become established scientific doctrine. This is the view that we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms. — D M Armstrong, The Nature of Mind
Materialism is an account of the world that is consistent with our perceptions and with science. What is his account of the world? How does its usefulness compare? Criticizing the deficiencies of materialism is not a justification for an alternative. — Relativist
That sounds absurd to me. Does he provide some epistemological assumption for this claim? — Relativist
I agree language helps shape how we think about the world, I think there's something more basic in us that is pre-verbal. No one has to be taught there's an external world, and that there are individual objects. The words have to become attached to perceptions. Animals learn things without ever attaching words. Gorillas and chimps can learn to attach words (sign language) to types of things.nothing comes to the human intellect already named...these philosophical pioneers agreed on this major premise: that which is first given to the senses is undetermined. — Mww
I agree. I've referred to this as innate, basic beliefs that are nonverbal. Arguably, these beliefs are PROPERLY basic: a product of the world as it is. If we are the natural product of the world, then of course it would produce beings with cognitive structures that enable successful interaction - so they would at least be FUNCTIONALLY accurate. The more closely this internal image of the world is to the actual world, the more flexible and adaptable the animal. When we compare ourselves to other animals, that's exactly what we see.what we take to be "the external world" is already shaped through our cognitive apparatus. — Wayfarer
Different starting points: a materialist is seeking to make sense of the world at large, a world that we've mostly learned about through science. You accept that there's an external world, and that science has provided some true information about it; the physicalist metaphysics just proposes a metaphysical framework for this what we know. It seems quite successful at this. However, when extending the model to the minds, there's some problems.One does not need to deny the empirical facts of science (indeed, the originator of this kind of philosophy, Immanuel Kant, did not) . But the philosophical question is about the nature of existence, of reality as lived - not the composition and activities of those impersonal objects and forces which science takes as the ground of its analysis. — Wayfarer
YOU aren't talking about science, and it's account of the natural world, but I am. The expanse of human existence is a speck in this vast, old universe.But we’re not talking about science. We’re discussing philosophy, which is crucially concerned with the human condition, with questions of meaning. — Wayfarer
Much of what I've seen written in this thread suggest there IS a conflict between idealism and science - the disconnect between the perceive world and the actual world. I guess there are varying degrees. The title of the thread suggests a high degree of skepticism about the external world.here’s no conflict between idealism and science: the conflict is between idealism and scientific materialism, — Wayfarer
Agreed: it's a construct and a model. But does the model reflect reality, at least in part? The model formation process does not entail falsehood. If it's a product of natural forces (however one describes this: no necessarily physicalist), I think congruence with reality is likely. If the product of something outside the scope of natural, something with intentionality, why would it produce a false model?I say that part of this world-model is 'the self in the world'. We see ourselves as individual subjects in a domain of other subjects, as well as impersonal objects and forces. But that too is a model, indeed the dominant model in scientific-secular culture. But philosophy demands us to look deeper, to understand the way that even such an obvious and common-sense view is itself a construct. — Wayfarer
Agreed: it's a construct and a model. But does the model reflect truth, at least in part? Is its truth not possible? Unlikely? Untrustworthy?I say that part of this world-model is 'the self in the world'. We see ourselves as individual subjects in a domain of other subjects, as well as impersonal objects and forces. But that too is a model, indeed the dominant model in scientific-secular culture. But philosophy demands us to look deeper, to understand the way that even such an obvious and common-sense view is itself a construct. — Wayfarer
I think there's something more basic in us that is pre-verbal. — Relativist
YOU aren't talking about science, and it's account of the natural world, but I am. — Relativist
You focus on the deficiencies of physicalism at accounting for the mind, and it seems you therefore dismiss physicalist metaphysics because it inadequately accounts for your area of focus. — Relativist
Yes, but I'm not doing that. Metaphysical naturalism (MN) provides a metaphysical context for what we know about the world. Of course, any metaphysical theory should be consistent with what we know, but the strength of naturalism is that it depends the fewest assumptions. The basic assumptions of MN are not derived scientifically (as scientism would require)- they are a product of conceptual analysis - just like any other metaphysical system must do.Believing that the methods of science can be applied to the questions of philosophy is what is described as ‘scientism’. — Wayfarer
Indeed, we have different areas of focus. Mine is to seek to understand reality as a whole. I have not suggested your approach is wrong.My area of focus is philosophy, as I’ve outlined above. The problem with physicalism is that it begins with exclusions and abstractions. — Wayfarer
Don't conflate physics with MN, or physicalism. Physics, as a discipline, does not entail the study of biological organisms, much less the way the brain and mind work.But physics... brackets out questions of meaning. Its power lies in its ability to isolate variables and describe systems independently of context... excludes is the nature of the observer — Wayfarer
I would characterize it differently. MN/physicalism provides a metaphysical framework for explaining what we know about the world- the relatively secure knowledge that science provides. It subsequently applies the model to the mind. It succeeds to a degree, but it certainly has some explanatory gaps. The methodology and framework are not suitable for examining the philosophical issues most important to you. Its unsuitability is not a falsification, anymore than does the meteorological study of hurricanes falsify fluid dynamics or quantum field theory.Physicalism can't find any mind in the world it studies, because it begins by excluding it, and then tries to patch it back in as a 'result' or 'consequence' of the mindless interactions which are its subject matter and from which it seeks to explain everything about life and mind.
That's simply not true. That was a claim some made, based on a basic Copenhagen interpretation. Most today would say that an observation is just one example of an entanglement, and that the entanglement results in a collapse of the wave function (some claim there's no collapse at all, but a world branching - but that's too unparsimonious for me).This exclusion could not be sustained in quantum physics, where the so-called observer problem brought the role of measurement and observation back into focus. Since then, physics has no longer provided the idealized model of mind-independent reality — Wayfarer
Fair enough, but bear in mind that I do advocate a metaphysics - defined as "In the rationalist tradition, [in which] metaphysics was seen to be an inquiry conducted by pure reason into the nature of an underlying reality that is beyond perception," (from the Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy article on "metaphysics"). As I've said, I'm not a committed physicalist - in that I do not have faith that everything is necessarily reducible to the physical. But I consider it a default assumption because of its parsimonous ontology. Some of the most appealing aspects are: its denial of essentialism, its dispensing with a "third realm" to account for the supposed existence of abstractions, the account of laws of nature, and truthmaker theory of truth. I am interested in knowing the limits of its explanatory scope (e.g. it doesn't seem possible to explain qualia), and for that reason - I like to explore the various issues with theory of mind.As to whether I advocate a metaphysics... — Wayfarer
This exclusion could not be sustained in quantum physics, where the so-called observer problem brought the role of measurement and observation back into focus. Since then, physics has no longer provided the idealized model of mind-independent reality
— Wayfarer
That's simply not true. That was a claim some made, based on a basic Copenhagen interpretation. Most today would say that an observation is just one example of an entanglement, and that the entanglement results in a collapse of the wave function (some claim there's no collapse at all, but a world branching - but that's too unparsimonious for me). — Relativist
Science relies on abductive reasoning , which is a general epistemological approach- not exclusive to science. It's explicitly used by historians, and it is the most common form of rational reasoning we engage in every day (the most obvious problem with conspiracy theories is the failure to consider all available data). There's more to abduction than parsimony, but why should it not be a factor?While you distance metaphysical naturalism from scientism, it seems to me that in practice it tends to rely on scientific findings as the principal arbiter of philosophical questions—especially when appealing to parsimony to set aside questions that science cannot easily address — Wayfarer
I'm open to a better framework. You haven't provided one, and indicated it's outside the scope of your interest. But you exaggerate the problems, it seems to me, because none of the problems truly falsify physicalism. Qualia are a problem, but can be rationalized as illusions. Is there a better, comprehensive explanation that is non-physical? Is there a true defeater- something that unequivocally falsifies physicalism?you seem prepared to treat the framework as the best available by default. 'Hey, it's a great car! Don't let the fact it doesn't steer bother you! Look at the panel work!' — Wayfarer
I repeat: a complete metaphysics needs to be consistent with all available facts. Consider how absurd it would be to dismiss a well-supported scientific theory on the basis that it's inconsistent with some prior philosophical commitments (have you ever debated a creationist?) Again: what unequivocal facts are inconsistent with, and thus falsify, physicalism? Explanatory challenges are not defeaters, but they could be taken into account in the abductive reasoning.That strikes me as an unresolved tension: relying on science to ground metaphysics when it appears fruitful, but retreating to a more minimal philosophical stance when its limits are acknowledged. I think that’s a structural challenge for naturalism.
as a philosophical position. — Wayfarer
There's multiple definitions of the term; I just sought a definition consistent with the scope of inquiry I had in mind to describe what I'm interested in, in contrast to your interests.I would question whether the definition you cite from the Blackwell Dictionary straightforwardly supports metaphysical naturalism per se. Framing metaphysics as “an inquiry by pure reason into a reality beyond perception” seems to align more with rationalist or even idealist traditions than with a naturalism grounded in empirical science — Wayfarer
Of course I believe objects exist independent of minds- and I've discussed that this seems rooted in innate, non-verbal basic beliefs. Do you truly not believe mind-independent objects? If so, why do you believe that?The point at issue was the supposed mind-independence of the objects of classical physics. — Wayfarer
I see no reason to think the most fundamental laws of nature are context dependent. When we notice a context dependency in a law of physics, it implies there's deeper law than the physics law. E.g. Newton's law of Gravity is true only within a certain context, whereas General Relativity is the deeper law.Furthermore that the laws of physics were understood to be universal and not dependent on the context in which they were applied, operating deterministically in accordance with the mathematical principles discovered by Galileo and Newton (et al). — Wayfarer
It doesn't do that, in the least.That’s the sense in which I believe quantum theory undermines the assumption of scientific realism—an assumption that, I think, underwrites the metaphysical naturalism you’re defending. — Wayfarer
I believe he asked because, at the time, the so-called observer problem was being debated.the point was, he had to ask! — Wayfarer
You haven't provided one, and indicated it's outside the scope of your interest — Relativist
Consider how absurd it would be to dismiss a well-supported scientific theory on the basis that it's inconsistent with some prior philosophical commitments (have you ever debated a creationist?) Again: what unequivocal facts are inconsistent with, and thus falsify, physicalism? Explanatory challenges are not defeaters, but they could be taken into account in the abductive reasoning. — Relativist
Do you truly not believe mind-independent objects? If so, why do you believe that? — Relativist
That’s the sense in which I believe quantum theory undermines the assumption of scientific realism—an assumption that, I think, underwrites the metaphysical naturalism you’re defending.
— Wayfarer
It doesn't do that, in the least. — Relativist
The discomfort that I feel is associated with the fact that the observed perfect quantum correlations seem to demand something like the "genetic" hypothesis. For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work. — John Bell, quoted in Quantum Profiles, by Jeremy Bernstein (Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 84)
mind is foundational to reality—not in the sense that the world is “in” the mind, nor that mind is a kind of substance, but that any claim about reality is necessarily shaped by mental processes of judgment, perception, and understanding. — Wayfarer
It always feels like you want to be a full-on metaphysical idealist but can't quite bring yourself to do it. — Jamal
…..blurring that dichotomy might be the way to go. — Jamal
As an aside, I’d contribute that for mere discussion of presupposed existential reality and experiential shapes thereof, there is no conscious need of transcendental faculties, the discursive empirical cognitive faculties sufficient in themselves for it. Pure a priori, that is to say, transcendental, cognitions being already manifest in a subject’s antecedent construction of conceptual relations contained in his part of the discussion. — Mww
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