why restrict yourself to a chatty robot? — Vera Mont

On this account of course there is no 'real' to penetrate to or to accept is forever out of reach, because there need be no ontology, like Collingwood's metaphysics. Epistemology might be all there is :) — mcdoodle

No, philosophy is about truth. Kant says philosophy speaks in a universal voice, as if for each of us, for us to see ourselves in it. Not everyone will have all the answers but there is merit in learning how they think to find what it is they do see. I take your responses here as not only obtuse but dismissive, condescending and disrespectful. Keep your opinions to yourself in the future please. — Antony Nickles

Imagination is an infinitely resourceful faculty. On the other hand, people do sometimes say they have encountered something, or something has happened to them, which was 'unimagineable' - 'I never imagined that would happen!' — Wayfarer

Will the textbooks and Encyclopaedia will still be in demand? (6 votes) — Corvus

That wasn’t clear, sorry. I meant imagine as in fabricate; we fantasize that there is something to “know” about the other. That is the picture we create in order to have the universal timeless certain knowledge we want (“pure” “logical”, like math). Yes, we don’t imagine people’s thoughts, but also hypothesizing about someone only applies in certain situations (guessing at thoughts, is Wittgenstein’s example, as luck would have it). If someone expresses something we don’t guess and then are “right” (now we “know”), like their expression matches my “perception” of it (that’s not how understanding or misunderstanding works). If they are in pain, I don’t guess or know, I accept or deny them, I help them. — Antony Nickles

Thinking does not work the way you (and classic philosophy) picture it, it is not judged as a mental activity. We manufacture looking at it this way because we want something certain, so we create a perpetual self that has and controls our constant individual “perceptions”—of “appearances” compared to an “objective” “reality”—or compared to someone else’s different “perceptions” that they have. — Antony Nickles

Well I’ll just say that motive isn’t “internal”. The legal concept of mens rea (guilty mind) is not how we convict on 1st degree murder if the circumstances allow for only one reasonable explanation. We don’t infer whether they “meant to” or “intended to”. If they planned it, took steps beforehand, etc. there is no other criteria we use, or could, to judge—as we use other types of criteria to judge other things—but there is NOT a criteria that might ensure with certainty making it unnecessary that we be the judge**. And this is not the failure of knowledge, but why a juror must stand behind their decision (and why the law must absolve them). **The desire to avoid the responsibility of judging entirely is why people want something as certain as DNA, and why the success of science has cemented its standards in our culture for everything, creating this mistaken version of action and the self. — Antony Nickles

Let’s start with a simple thought-experiment, to help bring the issues into focus.

Picture a tranquil mountain meadow. Butterflies flit back and forth amongst the buttercups and daisies, and off in the distance, a snow-capped mountain peak provides a picturesque backdrop. The melodious clunk of the cow-bells, the chirping of crickets, and the calling of birds provide the soundtrack to the vista, with not a human to be seen. — Wayfarer

I said that we imagine that. It might help to reread that paragraph in that light. It is not set up that we can’t “know” your “mind” “internally”, nor is it a matter that judgment is based on their expression (“behavior”) alone, but judged on the criteria of the activity happening in a particular context. And the self is differentiated not by a constant thing like “our perception” (which I have explained why we construct it this way, at least elsewhere here). As I have said, we don’t “know” the other (or don’t because there is something in them we could, but can’t), we “react” to their expression, as you don’t have a “self” by default, but in your differentiation (or defense of) the natural conformity to our culture. — Antony Nickles

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self. — Antony Nickles

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal. — Antony Nickles

So if we express a concept based on our common realities, they have more comprehensive validity. In my opinion, even the truth and falsity of propositions are based on accepted common realities (logical relations) and are only realities, not truth. — Ali Hosein

Truth is an absolute concept, when we say that something exists, its existence is a truth shared by all of us equally.
Regardless of what a thing is, its existence is a common truth.

Feel it to prove it. — Ali Hosein

Of course, sometimes when we talk about logic we want to refer to the logic of the external world, not just thought. For example, we can talk about an organelle being shaped by "the logic of natural selection." In this case, "the logic of natural selection," might be described by numerous formal systems, but it is not the formal description itself we are talking about, but rather the way the series of causal events that appears to conform to the more general logic. That is, the formal system is itself merely an encoding of the principle we want to refer to. — Count Timothy von Icarus

God is the truth, — Ali Hosein

The "problem of other minds" is related to the differentiation of the self, as we also imagine there is something to "know" about the other (in the same way I imagine I "know" my "self") thus the creation of "their" special: experience, perception, sensation, etc., as always different from "mine". However, as Wittgenstein will point out (PI 3rd. p. 225), we do not "know" the other's pain, we acknowledge them being in pain--we accept them or reject them, e.g., we react to their pain by helping them. — Antony Nickles

"perceiving"
"perceive my existence"
"seeing"
"looking"
"know[ing] I am here"

All of these things have different, ordinary criteria of judgment for completion, appropriateness, etc.; and various expectations and implications in different contexts (they are not removed from a situation, abstracted, say, into: "me"). They are not all the same nor tied to "my experience" or "consciousness" (though that is not to say I don't have interests, focus, awareness, reflection, etc.). Another way to say it is that the conditions for these things (what makes them "possible") is not "me", but what we judge as seeing something (as something), looking for or at something, that I know where I am (I'm not lost), etc. As in these cases, the creation of the "self" works differently than imagining it as my self-awareness, inner dialogue; as with looking and understanding (which simply turn on my interest in different aspects of something than you). — Antony Nickles

p.s. - not sure what is meant by "attitude words in nature". — Antony Nickles

"Consciousness" is a made up placeholder to give feeling, seeing, thinking, awareness, understanding, the quality of being unique to me ("private"), that I can "know" them and communicate that (or not, but then that is blamed by projecting an "appearance" or complicating agreement, requiring our "experience" match). Personal is to record the fact that we can keep feelings secret, not express them. I believe I went over this elsewhere in this thread in more depth. — Antony Nickles

It might be easier to read through my responses to other posts (say here) first for the sense of "assertion" here. I'll just say that this is not proposing an argument, it is asserting myself; as: claiming authority for me, against conformity (the social contract). — Antony Nickles

And this picture, here of "consciousness", is what I am claiming these authors are trying to get you to see past. "Consciousness" is a manufactured framework of the self as something that is mine, caused by the misconception that your "perception" is (perhaps) fundamentally different than mine (It might help to read this first). Now you will say, "but I feel this, and think, and am aware" and all that is true, but it is not the cause of the curfuffle. We are humans who have feelings and self-awareness and mental dialogue (which is not "thinking"; again, read the first post), but those are personal, not individual (we are not different by nature). The actual problem is that we sometimes just don't see eye-to-eye, but not that we can't. So if our "mental activities" are just there, without the need of their being "mine", as if special, than the need for the self as a constant thing goes away, replaced by the self as differentiated from our cultural expectations; i.e., I make myself me in relation to the past, our shared judgments, the implications of our activities and expressions, etc., or I am: a sheep, asleep, brainwashed, etc. (again, "existing" being a different matter). Good luck. — Antony Nickles

My claim is that the self (that you) may not exist (in an ordinary way)--that the self exists at times, defined against the usual state of conformity (chains, asleep, silent consent). (I am cribbing this from Tracy B. Strong.)

I conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, must be true whenever I assert it or think it.
— Descartes, 1st Meditation (my emphasis added)

The popular summary of this quote: "I think, therefore, I am" has been read that my constant internal monologue demonstrates that I must constantly and knowably be me; that I "exist" as an ever-present thing. But what is lost is that Descartes says that it is only "whenever" he asserts the proposition, that he does exist; so, only at times (or perhaps not at all). And that I am contingent on the act of assertion; thinking in a particular, different sense than just talking to myself. — Antony Nickles

Then, what is your definition? I don’t remember you ever giving one (although I may just be misremembering) — Bob Ross

Could you please give me an example (so that we can go over it)? — Bob Ross

Not very useful to who? The fact that logic is not about content, but about form stands whether you think it is useful or not. — Janus

How about you present an example of a philosophical claim, from anywhere you like, and tell me what you think it is based on.

Otherwise, I have no further interest in wasting my time responding to your unargued assertions. — Janus

Logics determine the forms that contents must take. The point of the comment was to remind you that logic, as such, tells us nothing about the world. — Janus

Yes, but I quickly added that it applies to all synthetic or speculative philosophy just as it does to the arts. It might be possible to make the case that it applies to any philosophy which is not simply repeating what others have already said, but I am not concerned with making that stronger claim. To put the point simply, if we are creating new ideas, imagination must be involved. How could it be otherwise? — Janus

Yes. Well put. — T Clark

The contents themselves are not the stuff of logic. but are merely set out in accordance with its strictures. — Janus

And again, regarding my saying that all synthetic philosophy is a creative exercise of the speculative imagination, that was not meant to apply exclusively to Kant, so asking for quotes from Kant is not appropriate. — Janus

such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space). — Bob Ross

No I cannot. The model which I have of experience is that I represent the world, and those representations are imperfect. — Bob Ross

I think all scientific knowledge, absent metaphysical claims, are perfectly compatible with my view. For example, I should expect that my body is made of cells (as this has been empirically verified plenty enough), but takeaway my possible forms of experience, and the possible forms of other people’s experience (which is similar to my own), and it is not clear at all that we have any reason to believe there are cells at all, let alone bodies, let alone space and time, etc. — Bob Ross

I don’t think they just use pure imagination to determine stars, they use empirical evidence and hypothesized predictions. — Bob Ross

Could you please define what you mean by “metaphysics”? — Bob Ross

I didn’t follow the relevance of this part: could you please elaborate? My point was that logic pertains to the form of an argument (of reasoning): not the content. There is no such thing as a valid theory of logic that provides its own content as well as the form of that content. — Bob Ross

So metaphysics is the long history of people thinking about such things which go beyond empirical reality; and so I can easily define it that way without knowing anything (in truth) about that which is beyond experience. — Bob Ross

I would say ‘experience’ is that first-person immediate knowledge that one has, which includes their mental life, such as things which only are immediately apprehended in time (as opposed to space). — Bob Ross

Lots of research on Time Perception already exists. Even I have written a playful Elementary note on the subject. — jgill

I don't see how, because energy operates according to physical laws, it has no capacity for self-determination or any innate direction. As soon as living organisms appear, they act intentionally, in that they seek to maintain themselves, maintain homeostasis, grow, heal and reproduce. And they remember. Energy, as such, displays none of these attributes or capacities, and there's no reason to believe that it 'feels like' anything to be it. — Wayfarer

The existence of computers based on logical operations says nothing about content. Various logics are formalizations of the rules that are understood to govern thinking; consistency, non-contradiction and so on, and do not themselves mandate any particular view about anything. — Janus

I haven't claimed Kant said that—I am saying it, so your request for supporting quotes from Kant is not relevant. — Janus

"What is Metaphysics?" https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/philosophy/documents/faculty-documents/fine/accessible_fine/Fine_What-is-Metaphysics.pdf/quote]

A great article. :cool: :up: — Leontiskos

Nobody's ever even faked a blurry picture of it. Of :up: it doesn't 'exist', any more than colour, size and speed exist: these are attributes of material entities. — Vera Mont