His very argument is that the set of sensations is the object itself — Michael

Isn't this something that's immediately obvious? What arguments could you raise against this?

Religion, in general, has the feature of there being some ancient doctrine according to which adherents are expected to think and behave.

This doctrine may perhaps discreetly be changed by the religious leaders of the day, but remains generally constant.

Along with this doctrine comes a multitude of traditions,etc picked up over time and constricting the followers of the religion into some specific frame of life.

Philosophy on the other hand, is a lot less fixed and indeed quite visibly changes and develops as time passes.

Although some common culture may naturally form around philosophers of some particular school of thought, this is entirely accidental and not something promoted by the philosophy itself, although that may of course differ according to the focus of the philosophy in question.

There are however, entities such as buddhism, which straddle the line between philosophy and religion.

I see the Buddha's 'world-transcending wisdom' as the acme of the teaching — Wayfarer

What does "world-transcending" mean in this context? Does it imply some form of supernatural power over the forces of nature, or is it metaphorical in some sense?

That's an interesting question.

Does something in the essence of a hammer precede the being of a railroad spike? — Cavacava

I'd say a railroad spike is merely an object occupying some portion of space at some point in time having the property of "spikiness'' which we call its "essence".

I don't see why the story of how this essence came about is necessary for identifying the essence itself. But yeah, if you go about trying to explain how the essence of the spike came to be, then you would find that the essence of a hammer or some similar essence must precede it in terms of time.

I propose that self-esteem satisfies a sort of drive just as food satisfies hunger. — R-13

Surely self-esteem is not as important a drive as hunger? Would you say then that self-esteem or some form of narcissism must always exist in every human being?

Doesn't transformation present a problem for determining 'essence' of some kinds of objects? — Bitter Crank

I think the problem of transformation could be avoided if we simply say that an object which has undergone some form of transformation is no longer the same object but a different one.

In your example, a railroad spike has an essence of being spiky, while its molten form would simply be a different object whose essence is its liquidity or whatever.

Obviously so, in my opinion, since essences only obtain by there being sentient beings who mentally form type abstractions. — Terrapin Station

Doesn't this simply affirm that the object in question must exist before any sentient being could identify its essence?

How does this refute the statement that existence precedes essence?

I agree entirely with your first paragraph.

other human beings — R-13

Why "other"? If you agree that cognition makes one's perception of the world entirely subjective, then who's to say these "other" human beings aren't the product of this same subjective experience?

In which case, this would be akin to asking yourself some question, but although this is indeed futile, I don't see why it's a contradiction.

All of the things you name are perceived by your senses and then interpreted by your brain which inherently makes them subjective, hence failing as answers to the question.

Something changing can't change itself. — lambda

Why is this true?

since this non-perceptual reality cannot itself be changing — lambda

Assuming that a non-perceptual reality exists, what brings you to this statement?

Sure. Donuts. — Terrapin Station

Yum

If we only had access to the self subjective, and no access to any independently objectively existent things, then we would not be able to from the distinction of what is our self and what is not our self. — m-theory

The distinction is already formed from the very definition of the self. The self is defined in the first place as the entity within us which receives and interprets the "self subjective".

So the existence and identification of the self is verified immediately by virtue of the fact that we do indeed experience the "self subjective", which must mean that the entity receiving the "self subjective" must also exist, and hence by definition, the self exists.

Nor would we be able to form any conclusions about anything as we would be trapped in a never ending loop of self reference recursion. — m-theory

I don't see why our inability to form objective conclusions about anything is an argument against the existence or identification of the self.

Also the only inference here is that the self is all we can truly know about.I don't see why that's infinite regress.

Do you agree that mistaken beliefs are most often, if not always, involuntary.
That is to say we do not choose to have our beliefs be mistaken? — m-theory

Yes. We believe things which the greatest amount of evidence in our experience support.

The explanation for this is because something else was the case irrespective of your beliefs. — m-theory

In the dog example, the belief that all dogs are black is absolutely correct until you meet, hear about, or in some other way subjectively experience that it is not so. Or in other words, your beliefs are correct until you encounter a new experience which is contrary to them.

Besides you didn't answer my last question. Could you name something we have access to, which is not subjective?

I am not asking for a description of being mistaken, I was asking you what could explain it. — m-theory

The explanation is that our subjective interpretation of the world changes according to the data the world provides to our senses.

So while our earlier subjective experience led us to the assumption that all dogs are black, a new experience was provided to us by the world (in the form of a non-black dog) which showed that this belief was a mistake.

I don't agree that we only have access to subjective, that amounts to solipsism — m-theory

Could you name anything that we have access to, which is not subjective?

"I like going to zoos" seems like one good justification of it to me. — Terrapin Station

Would you say then that the rights of the animals held in these zoos don't enter into the discussion?

But would you say that in the carpenter example, original work in the art of building chairs could be done by the form of practice the carpenter is engaged in?

Yes but subjectively it was true that there were no brown dogs, how should you have encountered a brown dog if that was in fact true? — m-theory

It was subjectively true only until the time at which you first met a brown dog. It was falsified afterwards because then, a brown dog entered your subjective interpretation of the world.
The mistake here is that you seem to think that subjective truths are not subject to change.

Are you saying that you simply changed your mind and decided that dogs could also be brown, and that was why you encountered a different color? — m-theory

Here you seem to be thinking that a subjective reality must reside entirely inside your own mind. My contention all along was that there exists a world around us which is independent of us, but which we can only know of through our subjective experience of it through our senses.

So there was never any question of changing your mind. A novel phenomenon just appeared in your subjective interpretation of the world, which meant you had to change your belief accordingly.

You have not really explained why your initial belief, that dogs are black, was mistaken. — m-theory

The belief that dogs are black is mistaken because you have now encountered a dog in your subjective experience of the world, which is brown and hence, not black.

Also you can't know if mistaken beliefs are evidence of objective reality or not. — m-theory

Exactly. So why did you cite mistaken beliefs as evidence for objective reality?

I'm a skydiver:D

How can we have mistaken beliefs if there is no objective reality? — m-theory

Mistaken beliefs could be explained without referring to an objective reality.

There is an extent to which we can subjectively experience the world around us, and a mistaken belief is uncovered when we encounter something new in this subjective domain that does not conform to our previously held belief.

For an example, suppose you held to the belief that all dogs are black in color. One day, if you were to see a brown dog walking along, this would just be simply a new component of your subjective experience that would falsify your previous belief. I don't see how this could be evidence for the objectivity of reality.

you can't claim that something is or is not objectively true. — m-theory

Yeah that was my point in the first place, that you can't make any statements about anything which are objectively true i.e. objective truth isn't possible in the first place.

Well it is not objectively true that there is no objective truth. — m-theory

Sure, but that that doesn't make it objectively true that there is objective truth.

But of course truth is what is still there despite what you say about it. A post-truth world must fail. — Banno

Truth that is there despite what you say or think about it, would be objective truth.

In light of the fact that all humans experience the world through their senses and the resulting subjective interpretation of what they perceive through their senses, how is objective truth even possible in the first place?

In Dutch it's oefening baart kunst, which would literally translate as "practice births art" — Benkei

Are you saying that all forms of practice lead to art? In my own experience, certain forms of practice would not spurn any original thoughts but would only result in you getting better and better at the same thing.
For an example, a carpenter who works at building chairs would not become an artist of his trade by simply building the same model of chair over and over again, but would do so by experimenting with building different sorts of chairs right?

From what I know of it, nirvana has little to do with believing anything. It's about understanding that the cause of all of life's unhappiness lies in the desires and attachments we have, and then letting go of these desires to attain eternal happiness.

What's the pretty good evidence you have?

I never said " existence'' couldn't be used as a noun. My contention all along is that, contrary to what you originally said,

At this point we are talking about the concept of "big", we have made "big" into a noun, to talk about it as a thing, just like the example of "existence" — Metaphysician Undercover — hunterkf5732

(Here I requote)

"big'' cannot be used as a noun.

An adjective is not a different sot of noun. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we're down to nitpicking, ''sot'' should, in this context, be spelled ''sort''.

yes

By considering all possible arguments one can think of, for and against the idea of an objective world, and inspecting whether the greater weight of arguments lies for or against the said hypothesis

Wouldn't you say that the "power" of logic resides, at least to some extent, in all of us, and that this could be the undeniable authority we could refer to, in making a decision on some issue?

Would you say that it is probable that a world exists; one that is independent of us?

At this point we are talking about the concept of "big", we have made "big" into a noun, to talk about it as a thing, just like the example of "existence" — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with the paragraph that comes before this, but the fact that we talk about the concept "big" does not imply that we are talking about "big" as a noun, in the same way that we talk about cats, brooms and tables as nouns.

We are, in fact, talking about "big" as a different sort of noun, also termed an "adjective".

Yeah but since we all seem to be referring to the same world in our conversations,etc, is it unreasonable to assume that there exists an "objective" world which is independent of each of us?

It's about what's appropriate, given how we - particularly as a community of language users and moral agents - commonly categorise what is and is not moral. — Sapientia

Supposing that in a community of 100 people, 50 endorse one side of a moral issue and the other 50 endorse the contrary, how would you decide what is "appropriate" through "common categorization"?

Matter of Faith — anonymous66

Depends on what you mean by the above. Rejection of free will requires "faith" in the scientific method which leads us to determinism.

By denying the realist's claim that "truth is not reducible to epistemic notions but concerns the nature of a mind-independent reality"1, which was Putnam's goal. — Michael

Wouldn't you first have to show that there is a mind independent reality?

There is need for clarity. This is how the site works. The owner sets it up, recruits some folks he has some regard for to help him, and other folks vote with their presence or absence. It's not a democracy, and while we all like to argue about rules and principles, decisions are made by the aforementioned offensive fuckers according to the kind of stuff they like and don't like to see. The guidelines give a general indication of what that is, and those that don't understand them or don't wish to abide by them are probably going to have problems with the site.

The internet is too big and people are too ridiculous to be able to operate without blinkers and get even part way round the course. — unenlightened — Mongrel

Wow, did you really say that unenlightened?

Btw, if so, which offensive fuckers were you referring to?

both human brains and computers are used for the storage and processing of information — hunterkf5732

You say that computers are not an analogue at all to human brains.

Thus, a single similarity would suffice, to show that at least in this sense, they are analogous to human brains.

What I mean, is a more general question:

Do you think that anything (may it be actions,wardrobes,whatever you name) could be categorized as moral or immoral in an objective way?