A good account. Thanks.

I hope this is of some interest.

I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call ‘matter’ or ‘corporeal substance’. — Berkeley - Treatise 35

Berkeley has the problem that afflicts many philosophers who want to deny the existence of something. The kinds of thing that philosophers are interested in are such that to deny their existence seems to be to deny the existence of things whose existence is blindingly obvious. Wittgenstein’s private language argument is a case in point, and recent philosophy has been much concerned about Dennett and others who seem to claim that our perceptions are all illusions.

Berkeley here is claiming that this is an entirely technical debate and has no effect on common sense. No wonder his theory got tagged as “immaterialism”, which also means something that doesn’t matter. But he doesn’t mean that it does not affect anything of real importance. He thinks that to eliminate the concept of matter is to remove an important cause of atheism, scepticism and even socianism – and who could not think that those are important issues?

One of the reasons that it is so hard to discern what Berkeley is claiming is that he goes back on things that he has said. For example, he proposes that to exist is to be perceived (I don’t know what arguments he has to back up that claim, but let that pass). But he realizes later that in every one of his perceptions, there is an element that is not perceived – himself. He allows, therefore, that I am in fact able to infer my own existence from my perceptions. He denies that I can have an idea of my own, or any other, mind. I know them, he says, by their effects – not by an idea of them, but a “notion” of them.

(I think he means by “notion” something that we know, not directly by perception, but indirectly, by reflection and inference. I’m not clear how this related to “esse est percipi”.)

He indignantly rejects the inference that matter exists, on the ground that it is an unknowable substance underlying and causing our experience. Actually, the deeper reason is that he thinks that matter is inert and that inert things are incapable of causing anything. It’s a neat twist, I have to admit, but it is also a re-thinking and redefining of the concept of matter. He is in fact talking past all his opponents.

I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call ‘matter’ or ‘corporeal substance’. — Berkeley Treatise 26

This is is final move. So what it all comes to is that incorporeal active substance or spirit replaces the inert substance matter.

However, by the early 20th century, philosophical idealism fell out of favor — particularly in the English-speaking world

It is true that the idealism of Bradley, Green and Bosanquet fell out of favour. That was in the Hegelian tradition. But the sense-data theory of Ayer and the phenomenalism of Carnap was very much in the tradition of Berkeley.

Historically, nominalism shifted the sense of what is real from universals to particulars, from ideas to objects, and thence the presumption that the sensible world is real independently of the mind. — Wayfarer

I'm very sceptical about that. But I don't know enough to argue the point properly. Nominalism was clearly part of what was going on, but something as complex as the Renaissance/Reformation must have involved many interacting factors. The idea that a single part of the movement caused everything seems highly implausible to me. I also suspect that our problem was not really a problem for pre-Enlightenment philosophy. The explanation I'm looking for is how the problem originated. I don't recall Aristotle worrying about our problem. Plato's philosophy is more complex, but still doesn't align with our debates, IMO. Yet, there were important ideas in the older philosophy. It should not be dismissed wholesale.

'Gillespie turns the conventional reading of the Enlightenment (as reason overcoming religion) on its head by explaining how the humanism of Petrarch, the free-will debate between Luther and Erasmus, the scientific forays of Francis Bacon, the epistemological debate between Descartes and Hobbes, were all motivated by an underlying wrestling with the questions posed by nominalism, which, according to Gillespie, dismantled the rational God / universe of medieval scholasticism and introduced (by way of the Franciscans) a fideistic God-of-pure-will, out of a concern that anything less than that would undermine divine omnipotence'. — Wayfarer

It sounds like a very good read and might fill in some of the many blanks in my historical understanding. Yet - No spark setting off an explosion. Many factors combining in a storm.
I'm really interested in the information that there was a real (!) theological concern behind to the development of fideism. I had the impression that it was simply a resort of the faithful under the assault from the Enlightenment. Thanks for that.

The problem for you is that you think there is a "slam dunk" way of debunking physicalism. There is no slam dunk way of debunking physicalism or any other metaphysical view because everything depends on what assumptions you begin with. — Janus

I would go further and suggest that there are no "slam-dunk" arguments anywhere in philosophy. If there were, they would demolish ideas without understand them properly, and in metaphysics all ideas deserve a proper understanding .There is something in all of them that deserves our respect and attention.
However, your argument proves too much. It is always the case that conclusions depend on what assumptions are made at the start. But that applies to good arguments as much as to bad ones.
I do agree that there is no fact of the matter that will determine the truth or falsity of any metaphysical view. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all views are equal. I think of them as alternative ways of looking at, thinking about the world and our lives in it. What I don't yet know is how to evaluate them. Yet, I can't help having views about some of them.

I thought it might be something like that. "the reality of universals" is the litmus test for platonism.

Caution needed here, though. Again there's a sense in the back of that of the 'there anyway' reality, which will supposedly carry on regardless. But that too is a mental construct, vorstellung, in Schopenhauer's terms. — Wayfarer

Yes, yes, our concept of reality is our concept - who else's would it be? In the same way, our concepts of a unicorn or a swan are our concepts. Whether such creatures exist is another matter. More accurately, our concepts are not arbitrary, but the result of a negotiation with Reality, with how the world is. Actually, it's not really a negotiation because the world doesn't do give-and-take. It's more a question of trying a suite of concepts on to see if they fit with what we want.

As Kant put it, “time is the form of our intuition” — we cannot picture a pre-human past except as a temporal sequence ordered in the way our minds structure it. The scientific account is entirely valid within that framework, but it doesn’t erase the fact that the framework itself is ours. — Wayfarer

This is one of the moments that I think we may agree about at least some of this. The catch comes in when I want to say that framework is what reveals the world to us. You seem to have difficulty with that.

Now you may ask what this detachment is that is so noble in itself. You should know that true detachment is nothing else but a mind that stands unmoved by all accidents of joy or sorrow, honour, shame or disgrace, as a mountain of lead stands unmoved by a breath of wind. … — Meister Eckhart, On Detachment

We talked about this. I do think that the door/hinge analogy is more helpful.

The scientific realist and the scholastic realist disagree -- but about what, exactly? Is there a way to frame their disagreement without each insisting on one view about how to use the word "real"? — J

I'm not at all clear what you mean by scholastic realism. Can you explain, please?
I'm more familiar with idealism vs realism, but I'm pushing at the same door. At the very least, even if actual agreement can't be reached, mutual understanding would be deepened.

"categories of being" or "modes of existence" or as "categories of objects" or categories of language. — Ludwig V

I can live more easily with any of these than with Being or Existence or Objects or Language.

What we want to be talking about is misleading and true appearances, not "reality." — J

Absolutely.

Notice in the paragraphs above, the experiment is directed by the hypothesis, and the hypothesis is directed by the underlying assumptions or attitude. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's perfectly true. But what makes the system work is that the experimental results are not directed by the hypothesis - it wouldn't be an experiment if they were. So what are they directed by? Reality or Nature or the World - take your pick. That's what I was trying to say. I'm sorry if I was not clear.

.... We examine "conceptual space" and discover that, let's say, "Universals, numbers, and the like, are . . . relationships that can only be grasped by the rational mind." (Notice that for the time being I omitted your word "real".) If this is true, then we've learned something important about a category of being which we encounter. — J

Actually, there's a surprising amount of consensus about the "categories" of being, amongst those philosophers who have ventured into this territory. Meinong, Peirce, Popper all come up with three categories - the physical, the abstract, the mental. There are variations, but there's a lot of overlap and the surrounding framework differs. But the overlap is significant.
One reservation I have is that this arrangement can be characterized in different ways. It can be characterized as "categories of being" or "modes of existence" or as "categories of objects" or categories of language. It may be that this is less important than the approach.

My challenge is, What is added to our knowledge by describing this category as "real"? Is there any non-circular, non-question-begging way of teasing out more information from "real"? … And we can go on to give names to other elements of ontology -- perhaps including names for ways of existing. (Quantification!) We'd end up, ideally, with a clear and organized metaphysic that can still speak about grounding, structure, and epistemology, thus covering what most of us want from terms like "real" and "exist," but without the contentious, ambiguous baggage. — J

I've been thinking about this a lot. The same word is used, so there is a great temptation to give a general characterization of all the uses. There may not be one, in which case we simply designate the word as ambiguous. "Bank" as in river and "bank" as in financial institution and "bank" as in "you can bank on that" is a stock example. However, in the case of real, I wondered whether we could say that "real" is the concept that enables us to distinguish between misleading and true appearances.

I have busy days (again) tomorrow and Tuesday. So I doubt if I will reappear here before Wednesday.

But can’t you see that this seemingly straightforward statement already assumes the very point in dispute? — Wayfarer

OK.
This is an important moment - when the arguments run out or when there is no fact of the matter that will settle the dispute. Let's suppose that we have here two different ways of thinking about - interpretations of - the world, which are self-consistent and incompatible. Yet we seem able to communicate, so there must be some common ground. This is why Wittgenstein writes in that maddeningly elusive way. I'm not Wittgenstein and it would be absurd to try to imitate him. All I can do is try to present an account of my ideas that you can recognize as, in some sense, possible. The same applies to you. Mutual understanding would be success, I think. Agreement would be a pleasant surprise.

You’re picturing “reality” as something fully formed, existing apart from and unaffected by any observer, and then treating our perceptions as merely imperfect copies of it. That is precisely the realist model under debate. — Wayfarer

Isn't “reality” something that is what it is, ... existing apart from and unaffected by any observer" an important, if not fundamental assumption of science? How is science possible without observation and experiment that do not affect the data?
Your picture of my picture is not quite accurate. Some, but not all, of "reality" exists apart from and unaffected by any observer. (I shall go on to talk of reality without qualification. It simplifies some explanations) It's not necessarily fully formed, whatever that means. Our perceptions are not copies of it. There's a great risk of reification here. Perceiving is an activity, not an entity. Thermostats are a contol system. They respond to events and control machinery. There is no need for any images. (What would an image of temperature or pressure be like?) Our senses are part of a complex system and provide information to enable us to function. Images would just get in the way.

The whole issue is whether such a reality—one entirely independent of observation—is anything more than a theoretical construct. — Wayfarer

Well, there is the awkward fact that reality was there long before we were. I've accepted (perhaps not very clearly) that reality is, let us say, observation-apt and was observation-apt before there were any observers. On the other hand, some would insist that the only reason that reality is observation-apt is that our senses have evolved to take advantage of certain facts about reality in order to provide us with information about it; that idea is the result of our observations and theoretical constructs. I don't think you really reject them.
Theoretical constructs can be true, can't they? I'm not sure you really accept that. I get very puzzled whether you are saying that we don't know (epistemology) whether the earth goes round the sun or vice versa or not. There is the additional interesting question whether you accept that the earth goes round the sun or not. But perhaps that would be ontology.

We have no direct access to it, only to direct knowledge of it, only to the appearances mediated through our perceptual and cognitive faculties. To claim that reality “is there anyway” is to slip in, unnoticed, the conclusion you are trying to prove. — Wayfarer

I think there's a slip somewhere there. I had the impression that you did not think that "direct knowledge" was any more possible than "direct access". Indeed, I rather think that they stand or fall together. I thought we had agreed on this. I also thought that your distinction between epistemology and ontology meant that you accepted that reality existed - the problem is about our knowledge of it.

:roll: The entire point of the Critique of Pure Reason is about the processes that generate knowledge. — Wayfarer

I'm sorry. My remark was badly written. I knew it at the time, but couldn't think of a clearer way to explain. If I think of a better way to explain it, I'll come back to it. But it may be just a muddle.

Damn it. I meant to write ‘ there is NO pre-interpretive, pre-conceptual perception’. — Joshs

That's good news. I've done similar things myself. :smile:

The minute you place logic at the forefront of philosophical inquiry, you're going to get what amounts to technical, non-English terminology for a homely concept like "existence." — J

Too true. But, perhaps, for our purposes, we could use the natural language translation.

I frankly don't think my proposal to abandon terms like "existence" or "reality" will work, because thus far we don't have a ship to jump to. Unless you're in the Heideggerean tradition and are willing to adopt that very difficult vocabulary, or you want to do more with the Anglophone logical apparatus. (I've often said that Theodore Sider is really good on this.) For our purposes on TPF, I'd just like to see less contention about "the right definition" for a Large philosophical term, and more attention to the conceptual structure the term is meant to describe or fit into. — J

It's not a realistic project, I agree. But it gives me something to hold on to when the water gets choppy and I fear drowning in all the different views.

The thrust of the essay isn't that there's not an objective reality, but that reality is not only objective, it has an ineliminable subjective aspect. — Wayfarer

If you just mean that we can know what things are like, I can see the point. I can even accept that there are distortions in the way that we discover and think about reality. But the question is whether those distortions affect reality. I think that they do not - saving exceptional cases.

Agree. To think of the appearance and the in itself as a set of two non-equal things is a mistake. I take the gist of Kant's argument is that we don't see what things really are, what they are in their inmost nature, but as they appear to us. — Wayfarer

OK. I'm not unsympathetic, but I think that Kant misrepresents knowledge, because he doesn't recognize the process that generates it. My version would emphasize the dynamism of our knowledge. Our knowledge is always partial, always finding new questions. But we work on those questions and work out answers, which generate more questions. Complete and final knowledge seems like the terminus of that process, but it will never be actually reached. I would suggest that it is a "regulative ideal", but I really am not sure what complete final knowledge would be.

'Epistemological' is the nature of knowing, 'ontological' is on the nature of what exists. I make it clear at the top of the OP that the primary concern is epistemological. — Wayfarer

I take the point. It may be my problem, rather than yours. But there is a catch. If knowledge is true, then surely, there is a connection with ontology, isn't there?

Regards Berkeley, I have an essay on him which I might publish here at some point. — Wayfarer

I find him fascinating. It's a beautifully constructed argument, with all the right definitions in place. But he keeps taking back what he seems to have said - in the most elegant way and without ever admitting it. His patronizing remark that it is fine for people to go on thinking and speaking in the old way, but he prefers to think and speak with the learned. But the learned, in his day, were mostly the schoolmen, whose ideas he has been consistently rubbishing for page after page. And so on.

... Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies. — Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics

This is odd way of putting the problem. There's no doubt that we are capable of rational thought, at least some of the time. So it can't be incompatible with "an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies." I think that this dilemma is at least partly resolved by the fact that we now have reasoning machines.

We understand ‘same picture’ by seeing it as ‘same picture’. Or as you put it, by seeing something as ‘marks on paper’. The notion of marks on paper is no less in need of interpretation than seeing something as a duck or a rabbit. There is pre-interpretive, pre-conceptual perception. — Joshs

I agree entirely, apart from the last sentence. We agree that perception is not a passive process but involves activity (whether conscious or unconscious). Then we say that there is a perception before, without, independently of, all those processes. I don't think that fits together.
It is true that sometimes we are surprised by a loud noise or an unexpected flash or touch. We are startled, we jump, as they say. But that is not a perception - it's a reaction. In fact, we usually do manage to explain "I heard a loud noise" or whatever. One might, reluctantly, call that a perception; the difficulty is that a perception is always a perception of something. So it would be better just to say, "I heard a loud noise, which startled me." But that's a retrospective account and doesn't necessarily reflect my experience.

The reason I mention this is that in mysticism there is the idea that there are experiences in which the mind, or normal mental processing involved in the experience, is superseded by the body, or something approximating the soul. Indeed there are whole areas of practice seeking to do this. — Punshhh

There certainly are. What's more there are many reports of such events taking place. But are they veridical? By which I mean, not merely are they in fact accurate reports? Are they, perhaps retrospective, even filtered through the expectations of those practicing the practice? Many times, even if you take the reports at face value, they don't look as if they are necessarily veridical, but have quite different aims.

I’m not sure we would say that seeing the picture as marks on a page is an aspect of it (as it is so generally an aspect of any drawing), or maybe it is, as our becoming aware of the truth of it, the trick of it, both together as you say. Also, I would think that sometimes a rose is just a rose. In other words, I’m not sure seeing a chair, even recognizing or identifying a chair, would count as perceiving an aspect of it; as if each time we regard it as a chair. — Antony Nickles

I can understand that. On the other hand, I can't argue with @Joshs that it seems to have exactly the same conceptual structure as the duck and the rabbit. It may well be that it in fact has a different status, as a description that mediates between two incompatible interpretations. It may even count as a more objective description than either of the interpretations. In fact it may even be the appropriate answer to the question what the duck-rabbit picture is - what "it" is. Your chair, of course, is not a picture. One might point out that it is difficult to interpret it as anything else, so that case is different. As against that, who knows what puzzle pictures of a chair might be created? There is a not dissimilar issue, however, and that is the description under which we recognize it. It is a chair, but it is also furniture, carpentry, wood, a luxury and so forth.

I’m not sure whether Astorre’s pointing out that some countries are just recognizing a thing’s presence is just as mundane as this, but, in contrast to equating a thing with something specific (with “is”), the difference in perspective at least highlights the occurrence of something surprising us (perhaps our letting a thing surprise us). — Antony Nickles

I agree that @Astorre's paper gave me a new perspective on "exists". I'm not sure that, in the end, the grammar is determinative - natural language is too flexible - some would say sloppy - for us to take it that seriously. But it is certainly suggestive.

Going one stage further, the person viewing the picture is also a standing wave, so something in the movement of the observer and the movement of what they are seeing provides enough stability, is still enough for the experience to seem to be substantial and static in some ways. — Punshhh

I really like your examples. I shall add them to my collection of stereotype or generalization busters. But extending that model to people, IMO, doesn't help much. I can take on board that people are not just fixed objects, like rocks, but are also a collection of processes, in constant change. So are many of the things that we see. But the phenomenon of a standing wave is very different from the brain waves that you may be thinking of. For one thing, they don't create the same kind of illusions.

Yeah, I think it's one of the most useful frameworks available. As long as we promise not to claim it's the right way to define "existence"! What quantification gives us is an ordinary, unglamorous way to capture a great deal of the structure of thought. This effort, I believe, is roughly the same project as trying to understand what exists. — J

OK. This deserves to be taken seriously.

It occurred to me, while I was thinking about all this, that we have under our hands an example of an attempt to coin technical terms for the purposes of philosophy. Heidegger, Dasein present-to-hand, ready-to-hand &c. Sartre has similar concepts, but was channeling Heidegger; the differences may be important. Both have a certain currency amongst philosophers, but I don't think they have penetrated ordinary language (yet). I don't find them particularly exciting, though.

I'll need to think about this overnight.

"The meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist," as you say. So they are notoriously difficult to use precisely and consistently. — J

Well, I'm not opposed in principle to specialized or technical terms. I guess that since you think that there is a distinction out there, in reality, so to speak, you would want the new terms to capture it. But we would need to describe it accurately to do that.
I think it is only difficult for philosophers because they don't seem able to accept that the meaning of the terms depends on their context of use. They expect them to have a univocal meaning. ("Good" is another example, by the way.) If they could accept that, the problems would be, I think, much easier.
However, there is something fundamental about the idea of a concept being instantiated or a reference succeeding. Perhaps that's what we should look at.

Would you agree that there is an important ontological difference of some sort between a number and a rock (or the class "rock" too, perhaps, but let's not overcomplicate it)? — J

Actually, I oscillate between thinking that they have different modes of existence and thinking that they are different kinds (categories) of object. Either way would do, I think.

In his own somewhat unsatisfactory way, I think this is what Quine was trying for by equating existence with what can be quantified over. — J

Well, I thought that idea, together with the idea of domains of discourse, that would define what a formula quantified over, (numbers, rocks, sensations &c.), would work pretty well. I know that some people have gone off it now, but I'm not clear why.

I agree that, for instance, there are good reasons for sometimes distinguishing "exist" and "real," such the numbers example. But I'm sure you wouldn't maintain that it is true that numbers are real but not existent. We can go so far as to say that drawing such a distinction illuminates something interesting and important about numbers. But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it. Arguably, two invented technical terms would do even better. — J

For what its worth, the dictionaries seem to cite that "real" as a definition of "existent". But it seems pretty clear that "real" in most of its uses does not mean exists and "non-existent" is not an antonym for "unreal", not is "unreal" a synonym for existent. What the dictionaries seem to miss is that the meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist.

Nevertheless, it is hard to believe there are many cases in which one would want to say that something real didn't exist, even though it is quite normal to accept that something unreal does exist - under a different description. A toy car is not a real car, but it is a real toy. A painting may not be a real Titian, but it is a real forgery. &c. One needs to bear in mind several close relations like actual, authentic, genuine, and so on.

It is pretty clear that are used in different ways in many contexts. So I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean by "But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it."

I’m very careful about the wording: — Wayfarer

I thought so. Now I'm very worried. We'll see.

Epistemological, not ontological. — Wayfarer

OK. I'm not sure what difference it makes, but maybe...

The idea is that a photograph presents the appearance of an object as mediated by the camera’s optical and technical structure. It’s not the object itself, but an image of the object—structured by the mechanics and limitations of the device. In this conversation, the photograph was being used as a metaphor for perception itself. Just as a photograph is a camera-dependent image, so our perception of the world is mind-dependent, shaped by the structure of our perceptual and cognitive apparatus. — Wayfarer

I have no complaint about all this. But you have a worrying tendency to slip from "our perception of the world is mind-dependent" to "the world is mind-dependent".
I take the point about the metaphor. In fact, I think that the the fact that we have technologies of representing the world as we see it is a huge influence on how we think about it. But not necessarily a helpful influence...
If it is a metaphor, it follows that the photograph is not the same as our perception of the world. So we should chart the differences, so that we do not get misled by it.
The most important difference, I think, is that the camera does not perceive what it photographs. You might well say that it records the appearance of what it photographs, but that depends on how we interpret the picture. That's something the camera cannot do. The bone of contention escapes the metaphor.
But it does seem to me that the metaphor gives us grounds for saying that appearances are an objective reality. If they were not, the camera could not record them.

Kant ... distinguishes between the appearance of things—how they present themselves to us—and the thing in itself (das Ding an sich), which is how things are independently of how they appear. — Wayfarer

OK. Let's think about this.
The sun rises in the morning, moves across the sky through the day, and then sinks below the horizon. The sun appears in the morning and disappears in the evening. What happens between the evening and the following morning is hidden from us. This is appearance as disclosure or revelation - as presence (or absence). But this is different, because it is the same object that appears and disappears. (You know how we know that!)
We might complain that the sun, despite appearances, doesn't move. The illusion that it moves is created by the movement (spinning) of the earth. Now we have the distinction between appearance and reality, and it is created by our misinterpretation of what we see. But there is nothing hidden here.
When we collect mushrooms, we have to be very careful. A mushroom can appear to be tasty and nutritious, but be exactly the opposite. A quicksand can appear to be solid ground, but give way as soon as we step on it. People pretend to be (and appear to be) what they are not. These are the appearances the best fit Kant's model. Here, appearance (and not misinterpretation) does hide reality.
Yet perhaps Kant is justified in developing a philosophical, technical, use of "appearance" and classify all appearances together and all realities together. I think not, because appearance and reality are intertwined. There is no binary opposition here. "Appearances" and "realities" are not two different (groups of) objects.

But one sympathetic reading is to see the “thing in itself” as a philosophical placeholder: it marks the limit of our possible knowledge. It also preserves a sense of mystery that no amount of empirical or conceptual inquiry can dissolve—the mystery of what reality is in itself, outside of its appearance to us. In this way, Kant's philosophy continues the classical distinction between appearance (what seems) and reality (what is). — Wayfarer

Marking the limit of our knowledge would be something I could understand. There are indeed unknown unknowns - and, notice, they are presumably what they are independently of anything that we say or do. But I resist the idea that the boundary is fixed. We find that calculating what happens at a molecular level in the macro world is too complex to be a realistic project. So we resort to statistical or probabilistic laws. They work pretty well for us. When we encounter the astonishing phenomena at sub-atomic level, we do not walk away - we wring from the phenomena what conclusions we can.

You rightly emphasize perspective, point of view, as inescapable in all that we know, and, if I've understood you, say that a view of things without any perspective is impossible. I agree. We can characterize a view from a perspective as an appearance, so this becomes an interpretation of what Kant is doing.
So here's Kant trying to make sense of the idea of a view of things outside any perspective. So now I ask, is a view without perspective possible, or not?

If it is possible to say anything that was true of all possible perspectives, that might do as saying something about how things are in themselves, I suppose. (I gather that is one of the strategies that Einstein adopts in the theory of relativity.)

As for the sense of mystery, that could well be one of the motivations. Idealism as denial of the reality of the common sense world, has a very long history, going all the way back to Plato. I am sure that there is something going on here that ordinary philosophical discussion does not touch.

Whatever you imagine is still ordered by a perspective. What you’re visualizing is a Universe as if there were no observers—but the very act of visualizing already imposes a kind of structure, a standpoint. That unknowable, perspective-less universe is what I refer to as the “in itself.” — Wayfarer

This is a version of Berkeley's argument, which he is very enthusiastic about. It is a good one. But if you rule out the possibility of an unknowable, perspective-less universe, what does it mean to refer to it? Is saying of something that it is unknowable true independently of all perspective? I think not. What was unknown can become known - perhaps is already known as soon as we say it is not known.

Reality is broader: it is “the mode of being of that which is as it is, independent of what any actual person or persons may think it to be” (Logic of Mathematics). This includes mathematical truths, laws of nature, and possibilities — things that are real but not existent in the same way as physical objects (hence the distinction!) — Wayfarer

Perhaps I should be taking Peirce (and Meinong) more seriously. "Modes of being" such as "things that are real but not existent in the same way as physical objects" is right up my street. There's much about this approach that I like very much.

No, I was specifically responding to Punshhh’s bringing up the sense of mystical witnessing; I believe you’re thinking of the other use, like being a witness to a murder. There is the religious sense also of “bearing witness”, which, even if you couldn’t testify like at trial about the murder, Job and Arjuna could, as it is in this sense, be the testimony of having “felt” or “witnessed” “the power of” God. — Antony Nickles

I am indeed thinking about standard or normal use. It's use in the context of divine revelations may be different, and I wouldn't argue about that - I'm not qualified or competent to do that. But I also wanted to point out that there is at least one revelation story in the Bible that does not seem to me to fit the description that @Punshhh gives. I hope they feel inspired to comment.

I am thinking of perceiving in its sense of regarding something in a way (like a person as pitiable), or becoming aware of a new aspect of it, — Antony Nickles

I recognize that "seeing as aspect" is inherent in perception. What's bothering me is that as aspect is always an aspect of something. Wittgenstein's presentation of this seems to me to obscure that point. The duck-rabbit can be seen in two ways. But there is a third way, which is neutral between those intepretations and allows us to say that those two interpretations are interpretations of the same picture. I mean the description of the picture as a collection of marks on paper.
St. Paul's vision is described as a flash of light. In one way, that's an identification. In another, it's saying he did not know what he saw. So even if we experience something and then decide how to interpret it, there are descriptions that are also place-holders for a later identification. But paradoxically they can be interpreted by philosophers as an identification. That's not right as it stands, but I hope it gets some meaning across to you.

I'm sorry I have been unable to pester you for the last few days. But I have been thinking about our discussion a lot. I hope you are willing to take it up again.

_____________________

Of course! That's what the whole thread is about. (Maybe I should have called it 'Mind-Constructed World'). It's about how cognitive science validates philosophical idealism. The realisation that what we think is the external world, is constructed, ("synthesised" to use Kant's terminology) by the magnificent hominid forebrain. .... It arises as a result of the interaction between mind and world. — Wayfarer

I would have put some of the detail slightly differently, but broadly I agree with that. It seems to me incontestable.

No one confuses the photo with the object, but neither is the photo the object “as it is in itself.” — Wayfarer

It's not an hallucination or an illusion, but it does not possess the inherent reality that we accord to it. — Wayfarer

But could you explain to me what you mean, exactly, by the bolded phrases?

When I see a tree, is there not something about the shape of that tree which veridically represents how it is? — Apustimelogist

I realize that's standard way of putting it and I would love to agree with you. But the problem is that a representation implies an original. So to know that a given representation represents the original, we have to examine the original and compare it to the representation. Which we cannot do.

Well you have to explain why the world would not appear to us "as is". — Apustimelogist

Do you really want me to trot out the bent stick, mirages and Macbeth's dagger, or perhaps quantum mechanics and relativity?

All understanding really does reduce to 'what happens next?' in some sense — Apustimelogist

I agree that "what happens next?" is important. Whether that's the whole story is another question. Could you explain what you mean by "reduce to" and "in some sense"?

Followed by a rebuilding of mind and being assembled around a spiritual, mystical, or religious architecture. Rigorously developed over millennia, which similarly leaves the student a master of this approach to life and similarly isolated amongst their friends and family. — Punshhh

I had never put things together in that way. Fascinating. You could be right that there must be common ground. At least they agree in rejecting common sense. But it isn't obvious to me that the two approaches are compatible. Have you found that it is?

We “identify” based on the criteria (even habitual, unaware) of a specific shared practice (the kind of object), which is different than vision, the biological mechanism. — Antony Nickles

There's a bit of a trap here. We certainly do identify things by applying the criteria of a specific shared practice. But that does not mean that we always do so in the same way. Sometimes, as when we are identifying a rare species or disease, it is an elaborate and conscious process. We describe minutely, looking for clues, we look up definitions &c. &c. But sometimes we do so, as one might say, unconsciously or unaware of the process. In these cases, it is a bit of a moot point whether we should really say "we" identify the specimen. It certainly isn't under our control, in the way that it is when we consciously identify something.

But isn’t the whole idea of witnessing that it is without an object? “To be perceived, something merely needs to be witnessed.” Punshhh But we are not witnessing “something” (even less, some “thing”), and thus not even proceeding to “perceiving”, in terms of “seeing”, and so, far from identifying, .... — Antony Nickles

You seem to be thinking of witnessing as a preliminary step to the processes involved in perception - and hence identifying the source.
Sometimes we are, as one might say, startled awake - we wake up abruptly, but have no idea what woke us up, and indeed it is possible that there was no external event that woke me up - I just woke up, as we might say, naturally, or perhaps as a result of an internal (likely biological) process or event.
In those cases, I would say, that I did not witness the event. After all, there was, so far as I was concerned, no event.
But someone else, who was awake at the time, may well be able to say that there was a loud bang and that woke me up.
More than that, when we discover that the loud bang was a clap of thunder, we might be quite happy to say that the thunderstorm woke me up. My inability to report what I witnessed means, I think, that I did not witness the event. But perhaps I woke up in confusion but after a few moments can recall what happened and realize it was the thunderstorm that woke me up. Then I witnessed the storm.

I really should not comment on divine revelations. But still, as an unbeliever:-

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"
"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.
"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. — Acts 9:3–9

(I only pick this because I know how to find it.) Clearly, Paul did not know what was happening (what he was witnessing). Yet he was aware of a flash of light - and, presumably, reported it afterwards. Does this conform to what you think of as witnessing?
Having said all that, there is a paradox inherent in the idea that perceiving something is the result of a process. How do we conceive of the first step in the process?

I'm sorry I annoyed you so much. There's little I can do about, except to refuse to engage in order to avoid escalating your annoyance.

Thanks.

I've given up on meditation. — Wayfarer

So have I. I'm not sure why. I certainly lacked the total commitment that seems to be expected in the literature. There's a hint (which I think that those who write about it would reject) that one needs to abandon everything else to do it properly, but I thought that the point was to do everything else properly. I read quite a lot about Zen, which I discovered through Alan Watts and Thich Nhat Hanh. The value of that was that it gave me a counter-weight to the idea that it is essential to get one's ideas sorted out before anything else, i.e. philosophy. (It is obviously needed. Otherwise, one has to face the question how to live while working out how one should live?)

I was enrolled in comparative religion and studying what I understood as the enlightenment vision, and I really do believe that this is real. — Wayfarer

I've never studied comparative religion systematically, so I try not to pontificate about it. My founding texts were Aldous Huxley "The Perennial Philosophy" and William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience". I know enough to know that there are varieties of the enlightenment vision. It seems at least possible that there is a core experience, which can be interpreted differently in different intellectual contexts. (Yet one its features is the down-grading of the intellect.) Whether the "core" experience itself is the same in all contexts or not seems unclear to me. A common element is that it is self-certifying. I'm extremely sceptical about that. For me, validation of the experience comes back to ordinary life and its effects on that.

But if you read the original text of mindfulness meditation, the Satipatthana Sutta, you will see that in context it is a very exacting discipline, conducted as part of a regimen of discipline and lifestyle (in which mindfulness, sati, is one leg of a tripod, the others being morality, sila, and wisdom, panna.) — Wayfarer

Yes. I suspect that the suggestion that one can just simply sit and wait for something to happen is unhelpful. Something probably will, in the end, but there is no telling what it will amount to. There needs to be a mind-training as well, and that implies a community around one. I've never found that. Things might have been different if I had.

Scientific objectivity started, in Medieval thought, as a form of philosophical detachment, but it diverges from it, due to the emphasis on the 'primacy of the measurable', which we've already discussed. That is the subject of one of my Medium essays Objectivity and Detachment. — Wayfarer

I don't think that "detachment" is univocal, although we often speak as if it were. The detachment of a judge in court is different from the detachment of a scientist or philosopher, is different from that of a Buddhist (or a Hindu) sitting in meditation and so on.

That argument is that our knowledge of the physical universe (world, object) is not knowledge of the universe as it is in itself but of how it appears to us. — Wayfarer

I don't see any way of breaking out of the dilemma between idealism and realism, so I think we ought not to treat that distinction for granted, but articulate it more carefully so that the antimony doesn't arise. I'll try to articulate more later.

My lifestyle remains pretty 'bougie' (a word I picked up from my adult son). — Wayfarer

Afterquestion. What does "bougie" mean?

You are not prepared to take the bull by the horns are you? — Metaphysician Undercover

It depends on the bull.

If you take a bit of time to consider the true nature of time, you'll come to realize that current conceptions of "the universe" have it all wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK. Enlighten me.

It's not a matter of changing what we know about the universe, it's a matter of "the universe" being a false conception. It's not a matter of changing what we know about the universe, it's a matter of "the universe" being a false conception. There is no such thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

In a sense, I already think that there is no such thing as the universe. The "universe" overlaps with "the world" and "the cosmos" and does not mean anything concrete except "everything that exists". That doesn't make much sense to me. But people will keep using it and continually protesting to deaf ears is boring to me and others. So I go along with it.

For analogy, consider ancient people who saw the sun, moon, and planets orbiting the earth. What you say here, is like if someone back then said "indeed, retrogrades are among the many issues that seem likely to change what we know about the way that these bodies orbit the earth". — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm clearly not as excited as you are about these things. But I don't understand what is going on, except that there is a lot of controversy which I do not understand and cannot understand, I'm told, unless I have at least two degrees in physics. Forgive me if I am more laid back about it than you are.
But you are missing my point. Take your analogy. Suppose someone had said to us just before Copernicus published that everything that we think we know about the sun, moon and stars is wrong. No reaction. Compare someone saying to us in 1690, after Newton's Principia was published, that everything had changed. I would pay attention. Same here. Give me answers that I can get my head around in language that I speak, then I'll pay attention.

Do you see how this is the wrong attitude? It is not the case that we "need to change what we know about the universe". The whole conception needs to be changed from the bottom up, like a Kuhnian paradigm shift, but even more radical. It is not the case that we "need to change what we know about the universe". The whole conception needs to be changed from the bottom up, like a Kuhnian paradigm shift, but even more radical. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't see what is wrong with my attitude. You aren't telling me anything. You are promising that you will be telling me something at some point in the future. Back in the day, a Kuhnian paradigm shift was the most radical change possible, and the scientific revolution was precisely a change in the whole conception of the universe and the place of human beings in it. So I understand it will be quite something. I'm waiting. In the mean time, life goes on.

The expansion of space and dark matter are indeed among the many issues that seem likely to change what we know about the universe. But there is not, so far as I know, any actual reason to think that the universe only began when observers evolved. At present, the evidence says that it began long before that happened, so I'lI stick with that conclusion until some actual evidence against it turns up. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Isn't it making the same point? Anyway, it's a digression, let's leave it. — Wayfarer

Yes, it is. I just spotted a rather radical typo and corrected it. (Delete "presence" and insert "absence" But it is indeed a side-issue for us.

The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

I think I can make sense of that. I've taken a vow not to be sucked into commenting on anything quantum. I'll only make an ass of myself. But I can't resist complaining that I don't see why the absence of a observer with a clock prevents physical processes proceeding with their various changes relative to each other, resulting in the universe that we now observe. True, we now deduce that those changes were proceeding while we were not present, but there's nothing remarkable, to common sense at least, in that.

So, logically, the mechanisms of Physics must have had the Potential (the "right stuff") for mental functions all along. — Gnomon

Obviously. Consequently, we are inescapably part of the universe that we observe and interact with. There is an understanding of this that says that our waking up was actually the universe waking up. I think that's over-doing it a bit, but it is better than the idea we are alien visitors. Yes, we are thrown into it. But that doesn't mean we don't belong. If we were not adapted to survive and thrive in this universe, we would have disappeared long ago.

As am I! The main point being that in the early modern scientific worldview, the division of subject and object was fundamental but also concealed. Kant and later, phenomenology, seeks to make explicit this division and to re-instate the role of the subject in the construction of knowledge. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure why you say it was concealed. Surely everybody knew about it, and everyone (except, possibly, for a few marginal eccentrics) accepted it. On the other hand, it's true that the 17th and 18th centuries were not terribly conscious of the process that goes on to enable us to perceive and reason, so the turn of the 19th century in focusing more on the subject was indeed needed.

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

That does sound like a phenomenological project, though the motivation is not theoretical in the sense that phenomenology is. The cessation of desire and the pursuit of truth are not the same.
But the language here confuses me. The first sentence is ambiguous. Experience can even be understood as common sense experience of shoes and ships and sealing-wax. The second sense introduces raw data. I don't believe we ever experience raw data; the uninterpreted experience is a mirage. Interpreting the last sentence takes us on a long, familiar journey without a destination.

Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

An excellent example of distracting questions is the question of idealism, which is presented front and centre in the previous quotation. Now, I can make sense of this as a variant on "kicking away the ladder" exemplified in the Tractatus. But it seems a side-issue beside the real project of abandoning attachments, such as possessions and ideologies; I can't see why that requires accepting idealism even temporarily.

Ultimately in the Buddhist analysis the cause of suffering is clinging or holding to possessions, sensations, ideologies - attachment, generally speaking. This is an incessant mental activity. Notice also the similarity to the phenomenological epochē or suspension of judgement. — Wayfarer

I get quite confused about whether the aim is to end mental activity or give up one's attachment to it and in it. Both of these are hard to distinguish from ceasing to live. As to the epoche, it is clearly a cousin or something. You see, presented with this relationship, my first thought is to clarify the differences, and there are plenty of those.

You probably want to say "Shut up and meditate". I think I may be unusually attached to realism because I was brought up to believe that the material, physical universe is an illusion. I woke up as I grew up, but it was an important process in my teen-age life. Most people, I think, are allowed to grow up as naive realists, so their reaction to idealism may well be different.

... and here's my afterthought. I can understand "emptiness" as meaning something like the idea that things and events do not, in some sense, have the significance or importance or weight that common sense attributes to them. That would enable one to abandon desire. (That would be a parallel to the stance that Western scientists and phenomenologists attempt.) But the difficulty with that is that it makes compassion hard to understand.

According to the concept "universe", there was a universe prior to observers. But many aspects of that concept indicate to us that it is a misrepresentation of reality. It's really a false premise. So it doesn't mean a whole lot, that the implication of that false premise, is that there was a universe prior to observers. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how the idea that there was a universe prior to observers is a misrepresentation of reality.

By the same token, it is not true that the whole universe is in motion, waiting for us to pick a frame of reference. — frank

The whole universe could, I guess, be regarded as a single body. For a universe that consists of a single body, there is no way to differentiate rest and motion. (There's nowhere for an observer to observe from.)

There's no truth of the matter about which one is in motion. It's a matter of choice. — frank

But once the choice is made, there is a truth. That's the point of the choice.

That relation is a predicate, and if EPP is not accepted, only the relation 'is a meter from' is sufficient. Existence of neither object is required. With EPP, yea, they need to exist before they can be a meter apart. — noAxioms

Yes, there's a real problem about EPP. The root of the problem is the idea that something can exist before any predicates apply to it, or that something can have a predicate applied to it before it exists. Neither works. Hence "prior" cannot mean "temporally prior" so it needs to be reinterpreted or abandoned. It could mean something like "more fundamental", but I can't make any sense of that either. The only position that makes any sense to me is "co-arising" or interdependence.

My suggestion is that since elephant A & B are identical except for A existing, nether A nor B has any empirical test to see which is which. For this reason, I find existence defined as an objective property to be useless. Hence my not being a realist. All the problems of realism are solved. — noAxioms

Well, you're still left with the problems of idealism. For me, your suggestion demonstrates that predication without existence makes no sense. I already knew that existence without predication makes no sense. So I'm left with interdependence.

No aspect of the assemblage remains unchanged by the changes that occur in any part of it. There can be consistencies and patterns, but these are not static in the sense of being able to locate some static center around which the pattern is organized and which give it its sense. — Joshs

This reads to me as a specification of something that may well be possible. But without specific cases, one cannot assess what it really means.

Can there be change without stasis? Aren't they two sides of the same coin? — frank

That seems about right to me. But I would have to add that change and stasis are relative. Heraclitus' river has constantly changing water relative to the bed and banks. But the water itself, not to mention other factors, cause the bed and banks to change constantly relative to the landscape it flows through.

How could there be difference unless some difference is identified? Identity and difference co-arise―you can't have one without the other. — Janus

That also seems about right to me. The thing is, though, that identifying a difference is a rather different exercise from identifying an object.

Thinking isn’t in the business of thinking ‘things’ (identities) that differ, but of producing differences that relate to other differences. — Joshs

I can see how one might want to say that. But "different" is a relation, so it requires two objects to be compared. Of course, from another perspective, those objects might be dissolved into a bundle of differences, which then require a range of other objects to establish themselves.

Don’t you mean perceived, rather than identified.
To be perceived, something merely needs to be witnessed, this does not require identification. — Punshhh

If you don't identify the object you perceive, how do you know what you have witnessed?

We are fellow travellers, rather than fellow fixed states. — Punshhh

But if there is nothing fixed, how do we know that we are travelling? Or rather, how do we tell the difference between our travelling and the rest of the world travelling?

A realist might want to justify the existence of whatever he asserts to exist, but I don't count myself among them. I actually think its a big problem. I mean sure, the elephant exists because its parents got busy one day, but that's not a fundamental cause. — noAxioms

So what is more fundamental than that?

Nonsense. Two pebbles are (at a particular moment in time) a meter apart. That's a relation ('is a meter from') even without them ever being observed or known. — noAxioms

Oh, I see. The criterion you are applying is simply "being in a relation with something that exists".

I am more open to Meinong than most. My focus was on his rejection of existence being prior to predication (EPP). Given that rejection, I can be in the presence (a predicate) of elephant B without either of us existing. — noAxioms

I can make some sort of sense to your acceptance of Meinong's rejection of EPP. I need to pay more attention to him, (thanks for that) but so far I can't make any sense at all of your being in the presence of elephant B.

I don't know Kant all that well, but doesn't his 'exist' boil down to 'I know about'? — noAxioms

Not really. Phenomena are dependent on minds for their existence (and properties). But noumena are not.

To reject objective existence as a predicate is to embrace EPP. — noAxioms

That's not at all obvious to me. I'm lost.

There's plenty of causal structures that are not typically classified as physical. — noAxioms

I won't quibble about that. It's a side-issue.

Yes, Plato certainly used a different definition than EP. Plato cites the soul as something lacking in causal interaction? That seems contrary to how souls are often defined. — noAxioms

Well, he lived in different times and thought with different concepts.

Language shapes philosophy. — Astorre

I was very impressed by this post. It demonstrates things about language that most of us have to gesture at.

At the same time, your post manages to explain (no doubt only roughly) the ideas that permeate different languages. So a given language (in this case, English) seems to be able to explain the ideas implicit in the grammar of other languages. A given language may well have sufficient flexibility to articulate a range of philosophical ideas.

You may or may not have come across a theory on the boundary between philosophy and linguistics, known as the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, which seems to be close to what you are getting at. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - "Whorfianism" and Wikipedia - Linguistic determinism.

Moreover, the very linguistic distinction between the words "exist" and "to be" (in the sense of "бытийствовать"), "existence" and "being" points to a deeper conceptual cleavage. These words are not synonymous: language captures a distinction that remains, for now, unobvious. In further sections, we will endeavor to philosophically clarify whether this distinction is truly rooted in ontology or if it is merely a grammatical intuition. — Astorre

That's a very good question. I don't know how to answer it. So I shall watch what people say with great interest.

You may or may not have come across "Process Philosophy", often associate with Whitehead. Two more references in case you are interested. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Process Philosophy and Wikipedia - Process Philosophy

Could that pre-conscious era be described metaphorically as Gestation : the period between Conception and Birth? — Gnomon

It could. The question would be what impact would that have on how one thought about that process. I'm very suspicious of the idea that we, or the universe, are progressing anywhere - though I know full well that things are always in the process of change. Everything changes, except change itself.

Yet, the question remains : did cosmic Mind exist before the emergence of embodied personal Minds? Or, as some postulate, did our accidental (fortuitous) collective human minds merge into a Cosmic Mind? — Gnomon

I can't think of a Cosmic Mind except as a huge version of the collective mind that seems to emerge in crowds.

Personally, I am not inclined to worship a sentient world, or the implicit Inventor of a "mind-created world", nor to join a social group centered on a relationship with a Cosmos that doesn't communicate or correspond with me. I'm just exploring the wider world to satisfy my own philosophical curiosity. Am I missing some deeper meaning here? :smile: — Gnomon

I feel much the same - especially about worshipping anything. You may be missing a deeper meaning, but at least you are not pursuing chimeras.

For Galileo, how things appeared, on the other hand - color, taste, scent, and so on - were assigned to the mind of the individual. So here was a dualism of a completely different kind to what you're suggesting - between the measurable attributes of bodies, understood as objectively real, the same for all observers, as opposed to how they appeared, which was assigned to the individual mind, and so 'subjectivised'. This is the genesis of the 'Cartesian division' which has been subject to much commentary. — Wayfarer

My main point is to push back against the view that what we call science reveals reality, and replace it with the view that it is based on a "construction" of reality which is not, philosophically at least, any different from any other. (That's not quite right.) The historical changes were the result of a changed methodology - everything revolves around that; that was the hinge, if you like.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the dualism of a completely different kind; all I was trying to do was to puncture a balloon - or undermine a claim to special status. I'm in pursuit of a more nuanced approach to reality vs appearance.

It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Mind and Cosmos, Pp 35-36

That's well expressed. This conception seems much less exceptional when it is spoken of as a conception and by implication one possibility among others. But then, no-one, I think, could say that it was not worth developing, even if there were downsides. On yet the other hand, it has morphed several times since then and seems in the process of morphing again.

Buddhism has always been aware of the way the mind creates (or constructs) our world. That is why there has been extensive consultation between contemporary Buddhist scholarship, psychologists, and neuroscience (see The Mind-Life Institute). But Buddhism doesn't rely on scientific apparatus to attain its insights - it relies on highly-trained awareness to discern these insights about the constructive activities of the mind – although, that said, neuroscientists have devoted resources to exploring the effects of meditation on the mind: — Wayfarer

Yes. I have a lot of time for the diagnosis that Buddhism proposes. But I get stuck on the idealism. I think there is a problem about the idea that the mind "constructs" the world; it's somewhat better when it is our world or the lived world. But that leaves the world simpliciter in the shadows, which seems wrong, somehow. I realize we can't simply say that the mind reveals the world, but I don't think it is really meaningful to say that the mind constructs the world, either. It's obviously not mean literally.

From the reactions to this OP, I'm realizing that it's a very difficult argument to present clearly. Broadly speaking, it's a transcendental argument—that is, it begins not with claims about what exists, but with an analysis of experience and cognition, and then asks: what must be the case for such experience to be possible? (This is why it is epistemological rather than ontological. — Wayfarer

Yes, it certainly is difficult. I think I have a sort of understanding what "transcendental" means or might mean. But I don't really understand the form of this analysis, except in a confused and intuitive way.

One of the key implications is that we are not passive observers of a pre-given world, but active participants in the constitution of the world as we know and live it. To grasp this, we have to reflect on the role our own minds play in shaping the structures of experience—our world of lived meanings. This is precisely where phenomenology enters the picture, since it offers a disciplined way of examining experience from within, rather than assuming it as something merely external or objective. Hence the requirement for a changed perspective, not simply the acquisition of some propositional knowledge. — Wayfarer

Yes, I take that. I don't say I altogether understand it, but there are things about it that make some sense. But how does this fit with Buddhism and meditation?

Where does the measure 'years' originate, if not through the human experience of the time taken for the Earth to rotate the Sun? — Wayfarer

There are lots of fascinating complications, starting with the obvious point that a year on Mars or Venus is different, and a year on the moon is different again and differently conceptualized; then one wonders how long a year would be on the sun. However, I take your point, in a way. Yet I also find myself reflecting that there must be something real - not constructed, but recognized - about the Earth's orbiting the sun, no matter how we conceptualize it.

what must be the case for such experience to be possible? — Wayfarer

I'm afraid I'm prone to afterthoughts. Our problem can be thought of as a kind of antinomy. Our language seems to me to point beyond itself, over and over again. Which seems to be impossible.
We learnt from Wittgenstein's discussion of ostensive definition that pointing is not self-explanatory; it has to be interpreted, and that requires a framework (Wittgenstein says that we need to know "where the word is stationed in the language"). What if it were the case that the existence of a mind-independent world to which we have some sort of access must be the case for our language (and perception, not to mention action) to be possible? Would it be possible for phenomenology that has "bracketed" the external world to recognize that?

So 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. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle. — Wayfarer

I think that may be common ground. The issue may be what the implications are. I think we have also agreed that our knowledge of how the world was before evolution kicked in, or percipients or homo sapiens appeared is a matter of extrapolating or projecting what we know (present tense). I've suggested the format of these exercises is a counter-factual conditional. If there had been observers, this is what they would have observed. (Berkeley accepts counterfactuals as compatible with his idealism, so I am not presenting it in the way of refutation.)

But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. — Wayfarer

This is where the distinction between Cambridge changes or relations and non-Cambridge changes or relations kicks in. For me, the "mental aspect" of reality is a Cambridge relation, that is, that the world before percipients and observers was constituted by objects and their relations.
There's an additional divergence between us. You have denied that the mental acts required to establish our perspective on reality need to be carried out by any particular people. I get the impression that the "noetic act" needs to exist, but its existence is independent of actual people. I just don't get that.

These aren’t speculative metaphysical questions — they are conditions of possibility for scientific knowledge itself. Ignore them, and you don’t avoid metaphysics — you fall into it unwittingly. 'No metaphysics' ends up becoming a particularly poor metaphysics. — Wayfarer

I can just about get my head around "conditions of the possibility of knowledge". I've never had a firm grip on what metaphysics is supposed to be. My philosophical education was most remiss about that.

I’m not denying the reality of the universe prior to observation — I’m saying that what it is, apart from any possible mode of perception, conception, or representation, is not something that science can tell us, because science already presupposes intelligibility, structure, and observation. That is Kant's 'in itself' - to which I add, it neither exists nor doesn't exist. Nothing can be said about it. — Wayfarer

That's all fine, until we get to the "it neither exists nor doesn't exist". It is true that nothing can be said about "unknown unknown", except that nothing can be said - or known - about them. Very little, but not nothing, can be said about "known unknowns". I would say, however, that we know that both exist.
In real life, we discover both kinds as we go along. The existence of these is one of the things that tells me that there is more to the world than what we think about it. But it's not a category - it's a process. We incorporate them into what we already know, and we know that it is very likely that we will come across more as we go on.

That’s the critical point: science gives us knowledge of appearances, not of reality unconditioned by perspective. When we forget this distinction, we turn methodological naturalism into a metaphysical doctrine — and mistake the limits of our mode of knowing for the limits of what is. — Wayfarer

Now, here's another point of divergence. In the 17th century, scientists foreswore the hidden realities of the (Aristotelian) scholastics. The function of science was to understand the realities that we actually experience - except those things that we experience that were not amenable to mathematical treatment - but that was treated as a marginal note. So science was about reality as it appears to us - so about appearances. This got confused by philosophers with their idea of appearances as curious phenomena that hid reality from us. So you remark about "knowledge of appearances" is ambiguous. For science, there is no distinction between appearance and reality. The idea that there are two distinct categories of - I'll call it existence - appearance and reality, is a philosophical invention. In reality, appearances are real and reality is what appears to us. So, the distinction between appearances and reality unconditioned by perspective is a chimera.
Yes, of course appearances are not reality because they are misleading. Truth is, sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. Philosophy wants to forget the former, but we ought to remember it. This is important to us and to our discussion, because it is the misleading appearances that enable us to identify the limits of our mode of knowing.

Right, so we know that the cosmos was visible prior to the advent of percipients, otherwise there never would have been any percipients. — Janus

A neat point. I'm not sure how convincing it would be for a true idealist. I think you might find that they might argue that since the cosmos was not seen (and could not be seen) before percipients appeared, there is no proof that it was visible. We won't be impressed, of course.

I'd say there is always more to be seen in the seeing of anything, more and finer detail and also different ways of seeing as per the different ways, for example, different species see things. — Janus

Oh, I don't mean to suggest that seeing is not more complicated than it might seem. One difficulty is that the borderline between seeing and understanding is, let me say, a bit moot. Arguable, you will have some description for what you see, which implies some level of understanding. If I see a smudge on the horizon on Monday, and it turns out on Tuesday, when the ship arrives in port that it is a Russian oil tanker, did I see the tanker on Monday, (but did not see that it was a Russian oil tanker) or did I see a smudge on Monday, which turned out to be a Russian oil tanker on Tuesday. I think seeing is achieved on contact, so to speak, whereas understanding is never complete.
That sets a simple context. Different ways of seeing are another complication. So, I'll just agree that there is not a sharp line between seeing and understanding, which does not mean that there is not a distinction to be made.

When the OP says "a world that is fully real and determinate independently of mind", what could 'determinate' mean in a world containing no perceivers? How could something be determined when there is no one there to determine it? Percipients do determine their objects. If they could not do that they could not survive. It seems to follow that things were determinable , just as they were visible and understandable, but obviously not seen, understood or determinate, prior to the advent of percipients. — Janus

I could pick at the wording. But I broadly agree. The issue arises in "Percipients do determine their objects". "Determine" and "determinate" are more complicated than they seem. An idealist would take "determine" in that sentence in the sense that a law-maker determines the law. A realist would take it in the sense that a scientist determines the level of pollution in a river.

You said nothing is changed by speaking of it, which is true, but your comment referenced something which wasn’t claiming anything was spoken. I got confused, is all. — Mww

I think that one cannot name something by merely thinking, because the name has to be shared to be meaningful. Hence I focused on the speaking rather than any preparatory thought..

I bring this up only to show, once again, what seems new, mostly isn’t. — Mww

Too true. Though I think some people would argue that Geach's version of the point was rather different from Kant's.

Yes! The origin of the word is a relation, and yet over time it gets thought of as a property. Elephants existing to me slowly becomes elephants existing period. — noAxioms

It may well be special because it is observed. But observing something doesn’t normally cause it to exist. So even if it is special because it is observed, it may exist for some other reason. You need to demonstrate that there is no other reason.

Yes! The origin of the word is a relation, and yet over time it gets thought of as a property. Elephants existing to me slowly becomes elephants existing period. That which stands out to an observer seems observer dependent. So I'm looking for a definition where yea, it stands out, but not necessarily to anything observing or caring about it. Still a relation though. — noAxioms

If it doesn’t stand out to anything observing or caring about it, it’s not a relation. It’s like claiming to be a parent when you don’t have a child.

That sounds pretty objective. A thing either is or it isn't, a property that is true or false. But then how does an existing elephant differ from the nonexisting elephant, in any way that matters to it? That's a hard question since most dismiss the question before thinking about it. — noAxioms

I’m glad we agree on something. However, to establish the difference (or similarity) between A and B, you have to identify A and B. Suppose that A is the existing elephant. Your problem is that you have no non-existing elephant to take the place of B. You might find a partial solution in Meinong’s work, but you might not find his arguments persuasive.
I need convincing that existence is binary, but I guess that’s a side-issue.

Well, it stands out to us, so it exists as a relation. There doesn't seem to be a test for the existence as a property. That's the problem with the word slowly changing meaning from its original definition. — noAxioms

I can see why you would see it like that. I maintain that the sense of a word now trumps the sense of a word 1,000 years ago.
However, Kant argued that “exists” is not a predicate, which means that existence is not a property. Many philosophers agree with him about that, even if they disagree with much else that he argued for.

Again, this topic is about ontology, not a completely different definition of the word that means genuine vs, counterfeit. — noAxioms

I’m afraid I have been lazy in not giving you the variety of examples that was really needed and left you with the impression that “real” is equivalent to “genuine” as opposed to “counterfeit”. It is true that “real” can be equivalent to “existing” as opposed to “non-existing” as in “imaginary” or “proposed” or “rumoured” or “mythical”. But consider “real property” which means land and similar property as opposed to, for example, intellectual property, stocks and bonds, good will, &c. or “real earnings” as opposed to earnings before allowing for inflation, real cars as opposed to toy cars, real ghosts as opposed to pretend ghosts, real anger as opposed to simulated anger, a real murderer as opposed to an actor of a murdere, a real flower as opposed to an artificial flower. I could go on.
In none of these examples is “real” opposed to “non-existing”. “Unreal”, by the way, is a whole other problem, and you will see from those examples that it is by no means always the opposite of “real”. “Real” is a protean word, capable of being applied to a wide variety of objects, and taking on various different meanings in these contexts, If you are still not convinced, you can find many other examples in dictionaries, which, remember, are compiled on the basis of actual uses and not on the basis of what anyone thinks they should mean.

Agree. I said that to show that it seems to be a valid mind-independent definition of existence, and an objective one this time, one that provides a test to pass or not. — noAxioms

Some reservations. Your formulation has the consequence of limiting existence to things that have causal relationships with each other – that is, physical things. Materialists or physicalists would, no doubt be happy with that. But no-one else will. Plato clearly takes it in that sense, (which justifies the formulation you have) but then rejects it precisely because it denies existence to anything that is not physical – he cites the virtues and the soul. (See Sophist 246 – 7.) It could be made to work in other contexts, I think. Still, it’s a step forward for me. But then, I’m not even looking for a single definition of “exists”. I think that, like “real”, it has different meanings in different contexts. The existence of numbers is not the same as the existence of trees, and the existence of sensations is different again.
The meaning of a word is given in the context of its use in the local structure (a.k.a. language game) in which it is used.

I do understand how difficult this point is, and I genuinely appreciate the seriousness and patience with which you’re engaging it—by now, most people would have thrown up their hands and walked away. But I still hold to the fundamentals of the argument. If there’s a shortcoming, it lies in my own inability to explain it more clearly. — Wayfarer

Well, if a difficult philosophical point is not worth spending time on, what is?
I could not persist unless you were prepared to persist with me - so I also appreciate your patience. Fact is, I have got a bit fed up with walking away from insoluble disagreements. It keeps everything at a shallow level.
That said, there will be a pause before I actually respond to this. The wheels have to be kept on what we like to call real life.

An afterthought. If christening the baby changes the baby herself, who did we christen, the baby before the act, or the baby after the act? The parents will be very interested in the answer.

As soon as you name a ‘world’ or a ‘thing’ or ‘an unknown object’ which you claim is unaffected by or separate from your thought of it, you are already bringing it within the ambit of thought. The realist always has something in mind when he or she speaks of ‘something unaffected by thought’. It’s a Chinese finger trap - you can’t even say it without undercutting the point. — Wayfarer

A tempting argument. But you beg the question, which is whether speaking of something affects it. An obvious question is, "In what way is it affected".
I maintain that naming something (most things) is a Cambridge change, that is, a change that does not affect the object itself. It will not surprise you that there is a good deal of debate about this. You might like to look at SEP - Change See especially sections 2 and 5. There is also a Wikipedia entry - Cambridge change
I can guarantee you that mentioning these entries will not change a syllable that is in them.

Yes, it is reasonable: but the point is, there was not! What I'm arguing against is the idea that our picture of the world, as we imagine it to be without any observer, still relies on perspective, on there being a viewpoint, which is implicit in the picture of the early universe before life evolved. It is an empirical fact that there is and was the universe before h.sapiens evolved and outside the conception of any human being. But empirical fact still relies on an implicit perspective, which we have tended to absolutize in such a way that we believe it to be 'the way things truly are'. — Wayfarer

Yes. This is very like the argument that Berkeley calls his Master Argument, because he says he will rely on that argument in favour of his idealism above all the others. There's no easy way to crack it. Suppose I protested to you that I do not imagine the dinosaurs without any observer. On the contrary, I imagine myself there as an observer. Does that help?
I'm not quite sure that I know what you mean by "absolutize". But I admit that retrospectively applying knowledge about how things are now to times before there were any sentient beings is a risk. What I'm doing is supposing that the absence of perceivers did not make a significant difference to the way things were. There's no evidence to the contrary (saving quantum physics and relativity), so is it not a reasonable inference?

And yet, the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence.

What do you mean by "the whole world exists only in and for knowledge"? I certainly don't think that's true of the insensate world; it's not even true of people.
The world is not entirely idea. It has all sorts of other things in it.

Whatever we think of as 'existing' is already embedded in a complex of supporting ideas, concepts, practices, and so on. This is so, for anything we can know or identify as an existent. — Wayfarer

You seem to be claiming that the moon, for example, is "embedded in a complex of ideas, concepts and practices". That's true, in a way. But clearly false in another way. The ideas, concepts and practices that you are talking about are the ideas, concepts and practices of human beings about the moon. The moon, in fact, is an element, not a participant, in those activities; human beings are participants. But neither human beings nor moons are only or merely embedded in complexes of ideas, concepts and practices.

The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant’s phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself…But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time.

One could say that idealists (the eye) mistake the reflection of the moon in a lake for the actual thing. They need to look up, or perhaps out. That is what the eye is designed to do.
Where are the embodied minds (a.k.a. people) in all this? Do our bodies only exist as an idea?
Idealism is all very well, and I don't think that an old-fashioned argument in refutation is available. It's a way of seeing things. The problem with it is that it ignores the message that ideas and concepts and practices quietly and persistently send - that there exists a world beyond them. Ideas are ideas of something that is usually not an idea. Ditto concepts. Our practices involve things that are not ideas.
OK, so you acknowledge that, in a way, with your talk of a kernel (which I'm taking as equivalent to Kant's noumena), you accept there is something that escapes ideas etc. But for you (and Kant) the excess escapes our knowledge. For me, it only means that there is always more to discover.

This reciprocity, this antinomy, reflects the limits of our faculty of reason when it tries to grasp the world in itself. — Wayfarer

I accept that there are boundaries to our knowledge. But these boundaries, like boundaries everywhere are also opportunities to go further. Our knowledge is never complete, finished. Every answer we find generates more questions. We push at the boundaries of what we know and expand what we understand. From time to time, we find that simple expansion is not enough. We find phenomena that do not fit our ideas and concepts - and this is where the unknown and unthought reveals itself. But we don't stop there. We develop new, more comprehensive, ideas that enable us to understand the new anomalies and puzzles, or at least to extract from the data as much understanding as we can. Then, the boundary moves on.

The error is to mistake this picture for something that exists independently of any condition for its appearance—as if meaning and form could simply hover, unperceived, in the void. That, I believe, is the illusion of realism, and why the universe and the mind are truly 'co-arising'. — Wayfarer

The picture is one thing, the universe is another. Isn’t that obvious? There are some issues there, but that is something of a starting-point for sorting this out.
“Co-arising” could do with some cashing out, I think. There is a common sense account which says that the universe/world existed long before humans, so it seems absolutely clear that the universe arose first, and produced human beings later, so it seems absolutely clear that the mind arose later. But there is interaction between the two. What’s wrong with that?
True, meaning and form do not hover, unperceived, in the void. I’m not sure that I know exactly what you mean by “form”, but I’m clear that meaning arises from the interaction between universe and mind, but does not exist independently of the mind. If “form” means “how we think of things”, then, of course, it only arises when there are people to think.

I'm far from satisfied with this, but it will have to do for now.

Must the world be understood in order to be intelligible (able to be understood)? As an analogy, must something be seen in order to be counted as visible? — Janus

In answer to the second question, the short answer is no. In order to count something as visible it is only necessary to demonstrate that it is capable of being seen. However the best, and arguably only conclusive way to demonstrate that something is capable of being seen is to see it.
On the assumption that "intelligible" means "capable of being understood", is the analogy a good one? Showing that one understands something is a good way of showing that it is capable of being understood; that's a parallel with "visible". But there is also a difference. Seeing something can be completed - one can reach a point at which one has actuallly seen whatever it is. But understanding is (usually) incomplete - there is almost always further that one could go. Usually, we settle for an understanding that is adequate for the context and do not worry about whether our understanding is complete.
So the answer is (as it usually is with analogies) the parallel is partial. Yet it is somewhat strange that we also use "see" to describe understanding as well as vision. So perhaps there is more to be said.