Wayfarer won't agree with you about the human-independent existence of space and time by the way. — Janus

I keep emphasizing that there are two distinct meanings of 'mind-independent': a practical meaning and a metaphysical meaning, the latter corresponding to metaphysical realism.

The practical meaning refers to the fact that many things—trees, mountains, other people—exist independently of your mind or mine in the sense that they do not rely on our individual perceptions to exist. This is uncontroversial and consistent with everyday experience.

Metaphysical realism, however, illegitimately extends this practical sense to claim that the world-at-large exists entirely independently of all mind, as if it is fundamentally separate from the act of perception or any cognitive structuring. — Wayfarer

:up:

I think the fact that we all see the same things and can agree down to the smallest detail as to what we see and that our observations show us that other animals see the same things we do, suggests very strongly that these things are not just mental constructions. — Janus

Speaking of 'smallest details', there's a long (and not very entertaining) video interview on Essentia Foundation's website at the moment (Essential Foundation being Kastrup's idealist philosophy publishing organisation.) It comprises an interview with three European physicists who have won a prestigious award in physics for experimental demonstrations of the so-called 'Wigner's Friend' argument. The abstract goes:

Prof. Dr. Caslav Brukner, Prof. Dr. Renato Renner and Prof. Dr. Eric Cavalcanti won the Paul Ehrenfest Best Paper Award for Quantum Foundations. Their different no-go theorems make us reconsider the fundamental nature of reality. Bell's theorem in quantum mechanics already confronted us with the fact that locality and 'physical realism,' in the sense that particles have predetermined physical properties prior to measurement, cannot both be true. But in certain variations of the Wigner's Friend thought experiment an additional metaphysical assumption is now also put in question: the absoluteness of facts. In different words: can we safely assume that a measurement outcome for one observer is a measurement for all observers?

This is in line with QBism - that observations in quantum physics have an ineluctably subjective element, so that each observation is indeed unique to a particular observer. Of course it is also true that observations tend to converge within a certain range - it's not as if the observation will yield a frog or a tree, so it's not entirely random. But it's also not entirely objectively determined.

The very idea of science from the usual point of view is to take out everything to do with human subjectivity and see what remains. QBism says, if you take everything out of quantum theory to do with human subjectivity, then nothing remains. — Christian Fuchs, founder of QBism

Note the resonance with the Kant quotation.

One has to be willing to face criticism on a public forum, as it's integral to participating. But I don't accept that my responses are at all evasive.

From this it follows that prior to the advent of mind nothing could have existed. Everything known to science seems to contradict this. — Janus

I have addressed this objection many times, both in this thread and elsewhere. Of course it is true that h.sapiens is a recent arrival in evolutionary and geological terms. That is an established fact and not in dispute. But it is also not the point at issue in this argument. The starkest illustration of the point at issue is the exclamation by Immaneul Kant, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, 'If the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish; and as appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.'

So I'm not disputing the empirical facts of science. In the OP, I say

What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, without taking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth.

So appealing to objective fact does not constitute an objection to the OP.

then the idealist will say that lived experience is prior to science, which of course for us it is — Janus

That is a point made from outside experience. It is viewing humans among other phenomena, as paleontology would do, or as anthropology would do.

I don't think the question even really matters for human life, unless you are religious and believe in the possibility of some kind of salvation/ redemption which must involve belief in a life beyond this one in order to make any sense at all. I believe that is often the unacknowledged premise. — Janus

Yet I am accused of arguing tendentiously on the basis of religious motivation, when it seems clear to me that, as you can't understand the argument, and believe that it contradicts common-sense realism, then the author must have religious pre-conceptions. Which speaks to preconceptions of your own.

Knew I'd read that spelling somewhere.

But if mental life is part of reality, and I’m sure you would agree it is, and physics doesn’t explain that, then there is an explanatory gap. But I agree that modern physics is plainly superior to Aristotelian, although it is interesting that Werner Heisenberg himself saw an application for Aristotle’s ‘potentia’ in quantum physics - see https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-mysteries-dissolve-if-possibilities-are-realities

I grant that it doesn't explain mental life. — Relativist

Oh, so dualism then? Different laws for the mental?

But physics does not 'explain reality' - contrary to Armstrong's physicalism, in which 'the physical' is all that there is. As philosophers of science point out, physics is based on fundamental premisses which methodically exclude fundamental aspects of reality as lived (also known as 'being'.) It depends on idealisation, abstraction and objectification of mathematical models which take only into account the quantifiable characteristics of external bodies. As a model, it obviously provides extraodinary control over those subjects, but as a paradigm, it excludes much of what is basic to philosophy.

I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schrodinger, Nature and the Greeks

Anyway, don't want to derail gnomon's thread, but I did want to call that point out.

The nature of reality is better explained by modern physics. — Relativist

'Physics does not show us nature as she is in herself, but only nature exposed to our methods of questioning.'

But it doesn't matter, right? Not important. And I've also spent more time addressing your objections than, I think, anyone else on this forum, over a period of years, including in the post two or three above this one. Could it be that, rather than my not addressing your questions, that you don't understand the responses? For instance, the excerpt posted about Husserl which I think supports all the major points in the OP, but which elicited no response.

In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p139

I also don't think the question is of much importance — Janus

Ironic, considering how much time you've devoted to arguing about it.

Still, at least that has the consequence of making me clarify my argument, which is a plus.

You would have to posit some sort of soul or immaterial mind, I would imagine, to go the route that you are—i.e., reason is not grounded in the brain. For me, the brain is clearly the organ responsible for facilitating reason. — Bob Ross

Bob, I appreciate the clarity of your position, but it seems to presuppose that correlation implies causation or identity. While a functioning brain is undeniably necessary for reasoning, it doesn't follow that reasoning is reducible to or explainable as neurophysiological processes. This assumption overlooks the qualitative distinction between physical states (which are describable in third-person terms) and rational states (which involve first-person intentionality). If we take seriously the goal-directed nature of reason, as aiming at truth, it seems to transcend the purely mechanical processes of the brain, which are indifferent to truth. It is undoubedtly the case that a functioning brain is required for the exercise of reason, but that doesn't mean that reason is grounded in neurophysiological processes (which is the general assumption of materialist philosophy of mind.) The vicious regress is that to establish the identity of any purported neurological processes with the exercise of reason, itself requires the exercise of reason. We can't see reason 'from the outside' as it were, but only from within the process of rational inference itself, 'if this, then that', etc. Reason is goal- directed with respect to arriving at a true outcome, hence an intentional activity.

Edward Feser puts it thus:

Now the puzzle intentionality poses for materialism can be summarized this way: Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.

and Thomas Nagel:

The only form that genuine reasoning can take consists in seeing the validity of the arguments, in virtue of what they say. As soon as one tries to step outside of such thoughts [i.e. by describing them in terms of neurological activities], one loses contact with their true content. And one cannot be outside and inside them at the same time: If one thinks in logic, one cannot simultaneously regard those thoughts as mere psychological dispositions, however caused or however biologically grounded. If one decides that some of one's psychological dispositions are, as a contingent matter of fact, reliable methods of reaching the truth (as one may with perception, for example), then in doing so one must rely on other thoughts that one actually thinks, without regarding them as mere dispositions. One cannot embed all one's reasoning in a psychological theory, including the reasonings that have led to that psychological theory. The epistemological buck must stop somewhere. By this I mean not that there must be some premises that are forever unrevisable but, rather, that in any process of reasoning or argument there must be some thoughts that one simply thinks from the inside--rather than thinking of them as biologically programmed dispositions.

The long and short is, though we know that a functioning brain is a necessary condition for reason, this doesn't establish that reason is meaningfully a product of the brain. It might be something that having a good brain enables us to recognise - but we recognise it, because it was already the case. Hence, transcendendental!

@Mww

I feel obliged to say something about the conscilience between being good and being true in pre-modern philosophy. Sound judgement relies on clear vision, the ability to assess what is the case and respond accordingly. And this, across a wide range of situations and scenarios. It isn't a matter of technical know how or specific subject-matter expertise, but - what's that old-fashioned word? - wisdom, a.k.a. sapience (part of our species name, as it happens.) Of course, for us moderns, that is challenging, because the universe is supposed to be indifferent to us, and besides not animated by anything other than physical laws. But I felt it was worth calling out.

Being true is about sentences — Banno

:chin:

I once had a conversation online and this guy said that Nietzsche said the (physical) universe does not contain any ethical principle. But he also argued that the ethical person is 'rationally' defined in modern thinking. — EnPassant

Modern science and culture has division at its basis - division between self and world, mind and matter, I and other. In the sphere of philosophy it was built around the division of the primary qualities of matter - those attributes such as mass, shape, velocity, and so on, which are precisely measurable and predictable, and those such as scent, colour, etc which were said to be 'in the mind' of the observer. At the same time, any kind of teleological thinking was banished from physics - objects behave as they do because of physical laws and antecedent physical conditions. Furthermore science sees no reason not to treat the human subject as objects, as @Relativist says above. So the natural outcome of that is that of course the physical universe is devoid of morality, subjectivity and intentionality, which are increasingly understood as matters of individual conscience and tantamount to mere opinion. Nietszche was highly aware of that, although it was not something of his invention. Arguably, his 'Death of God' was a reflection on it.

I did not mean to comment of "ethical normativity" - whatever that is - but rather to comment on what we have to work with. — Questioner

That's OK, I'm not accusing you of anything! But 'ethical normativity' is precisely the nub of the question posed by the OP - why ought we do good.

My comment and the quote I provided was about the general assumption that evolution provides the basis or ground for judgements about such matters. That is what I'm questioning. I hasten to add I'm not promoting any kind of 'Intelligent Design' agenda. I'm overall pretty familiar with the evolution of h.sapiens, and evolution generally, which I've studied since I was a child (I grew up on the excellent Time-Life series of books.) But I think our culture leans too heavily on evolutionary theory for a sense of identity. It is a biological theory about the origin of species. Due to the historical circumstances of its discovery it has assumed a role for which I don't think it's suitable. See Is Evolution a Secular Religion? Michael Ruse.

Just look at how little the surrender deal to the Taleban sparked outcry. — ssu

Thanks SSU your perspective on geopolitics always seems very sound and well informed to me.

Let’s not forget, however, that while Trump inked the deal with the Taliban that lead to the US withdrawal, it was Biden who had to execute it, which lead to those disastrous scenes and deaths at Kabul Airport and the debacle of the collapse of the Afghan military. This was then used against Biden for the remainder of this term, regardless of the fact that Trump had set the wheels in motion. Which would only be typical of MAGA politics. But that’s the other thread.

I generally refrain from commenting on the Ukraine disaster, but I have an ominous feeling about it. I think it’s too optimistic to hope for Ukraine to turn the tide of war, but it’s desperately important to avoid and outcome that Putin can claim as a victory.

It is, really. I think I’ve interacted with ChatGPT every day since launch, which is now two years. It’s also really helpful in professional matters, I have won a contract to do product documentation for a smart comms device. ChatGPT provided instant background to the protocols used by this device (which I’d never heard of) and a lot of other industry-specific information.

I’ve begun to think of the ‘A’ in ‘AI’ as standing for ‘Augmented’, rather than ‘Artificial’. Because that’s what it is.

Well, to address your objections more completely.

Constructivism (and my position in the OP) does not deny that objects exist independent of perception. The key point is that our knowledge of such objects is mediated by subjective processes—experience and prior knowledge shape how those objects appear to us. This does not negate their independent existence but highlights the active role of the subject in any knowledge of them.

I keep emphasizing that there are two distinct meanings of 'mind-independent': a practical meaning and a metaphysical meaning, the latter corresponding to metaphysical realism.

The practical meaning refers to the fact that many things—trees, mountains, other people—exist independently of your mind or mine in the sense that they do not rely on our individual perceptions to exist. This is uncontroversial and consistent with everyday experience.

Metaphysical realism, however, illegitimately extends this practical sense to claim that the world-at-large exists entirely independently of all mind, as if it is fundamentally separate from the act of perception or any cognitive structuring. This leap goes beyond what can be demonstrated and assumes what it needs to prove, ignoring the role that mind plays in shaping the world we experience. Recognizing this distinction is key to understanding why metaphysical realism is not as secure as it seems.

This distinction between the practical and metaphysical meanings of 'mind-independent' is consistent with Kant's insight that empirical realism is compatible with transcendental idealism. We can acknowledge that objects exist independently of our individual perceptions in the practical, phenomenal sense while also recognizing that this does not mean they exist as they are 'in themselves,' apart from the structuring role of mind.

You seem to be conflating knowledge with what we have knowledge of. I guess it depends on what you mean by "knowledge". Knowledge by aquainatance can be equated with bare perception, but discursive knowledge also incorporates judgement regarding what is perceived. — Janus

I agree that knowledge and what we know are distinct. However, my argument is about the relationship between the two: what we know is dependent on our cognitive and rational faculties.. Even bare perception, which you equate with knowledge by acquaintance, involves a structuring process, if any object it to be identified - even to know what it is requires that it be identified..Cognition is thus always mediated by sensory and cognitive abilities.

The fact that different subjects see the same objects doesn't vitiate constructivism. Shared experiences arise because we inhabit a shared world and possess similar sensory and cognitive apparatuses, leading to intersubjective agreement. However, this does not prove that the world is 'mind-independent'—only that our minds process shared inputs in similar ways.Furthermore different subjects can see the same objects in competely different ways, depending on what preconceptions or prior knowledge they bring to what they see.

The questions are matters of faith because there is no possibility of logical proof or empirical confirmation regarding the question of whether the world is fundamentally physical or mental. — Janus

If deciding whether reality is 'physical' or 'mental' requires a leap of faith, then realism is in no better position than idealism. Metaphysical realism claims that the world exists independently of the mind, but it cannot justify this beyond an appeal to reason—an appeal that idealism and constructivism also make. The difference is that idealism and constructivism openly recognize the unavoidable role of the mind in structuring experience, making them more consistent with how knowledge actually operates. In doing so, they are forthright about their reliance on reason rather than claiming a privileged metaphysical certainty.

it's not that I don't see the point, but that I disagree, and that is the point which you seem to be incapable of seeing. — Janus

Right back at ya! :-) (I mean, from what you say, I can't see what it is you're taking issue with.)

Incidentally I am seeing how this 'mind creates world' meme is proliferating on the Internet right now. In various substack and medium feeds, plus Aeon and Big Think there are articles on it practically every day, some thought-provoking and sober, some entirely ridiculous.

Right - it makes sense. In some ways it's similar to the enactivist 'building the path by walking it' approach. There are similar ideas coming out of cognitivism, and, of course, the Vervaeke lectures and the 'salience landscape' and 'relevance realisation'. But that is a fair distance from the hard core neo-darwinian view.

Natural selection has no goals. — Questioner

Right. That's the salient point when it comes to invoking evolutionary biology as a rationale for ethical normativity.

The fact that we and the animals all share the same world and see the same things at the same times and places shows that what we perceive is not only determined by the mind but is also constrained by the physical nature of the senses and what is "out there". — Janus

I don't think constructivism denies that, nor do I in the OP - as I said I acknowledge there are objects unseen by any eye. I think you're still seeing both constructivism and idealism as stating that reality is 'all in the mind'.

Contructivism's core idea is that knowledge is a construction created by the mind, based on experience and prior knowledge, which provides the conceptual framework into which experience is incorporated. Radical constructivism stays neutral about the mind-independent world. It says, "We can't know reality as it is; we only know how we construct it."

It's more concerned with how we learn, think, and know than about making metaphysical claims. It is applied to fields such as education, cognitive science, and systems theory. "Reality is like a map you create as you navigate a territory—you can't claim the map is the territory itself." But the important thing to note is that it is largely epistemological, concerned with knowledge.

Analytical idealism accepts these premisses, but then goes a step further in proposing a metaphysic in which reality is mental in nature.

But as said in the OP, my main focus is not proposing a substantial metaphysics. In some way, my own approach is more aligned with constructivism. But they're both opposed to metaphysical realism. But it doesn’t mean dismissing reality or saying 'reality doesn't exist' —it's that both constructivism and phenomenological idealism recognize the importance of subjective experience as a fundamental structure of experienced reality. And it's just this subjective element which is 'bracketed out' by objectivism. The critique of metaphysical realism (drawing from Kant) is that it fails to notice how the mind actively structures reality through establishing conditions of subjective experience. Realism assumes that the world is 'just so' independent of the observer, yet overlooks how much of what we take as real is mediated by this subjective structuring process.

Which is exactly what the passage about Husserl states:

Certain characteristic methodological devices of the sciences, chiefly idealisation and objectification, have been misunderstood such that their objects are thought to yield the natural world as it is in itself, for example that nature is treated as a closed system of physical entities obeying laws, and everything else is squeezed out and treated as psychical, possibly even epiphenomenal — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p139

.

So this is not a 'matter of faith', and I think the reason you keep saying that over and over again is because you're not seeing the point.

(Incidentally the above info about constructivism was gleaned from Constructivist Foundations. Information about analytical idealism can be found on Essentia Foundation.)

Trump has stated he intends to pursue a deal. — Tzeentch

Trump is basically implying that he will cave to Putin, whom he constantly expresses admiration for. As said many times, I believe Putin is wholly and solely responsible for the criminal invasion of Ukraine, the destruction of billions of dollars worth of property and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Wholly and solely. It is desperately important that Putin is defeated and seen to be defeated, and that will be an extremely difficult, if not impossible, outcome. But anything less is capitulation to a murderous autocrat.

Seems to me those questions are closely related, even intertwined. — Janus

Which questions? Incidentally, my reference to 'the passage I quoted' was actually a reference to the excerpt about Husserl that I posted in the Mind-Created World thread - I got my wires crossed between these two threads. I think discussoion of the 'mind-independence in Husserl' question ought to be in that other thread.

Why does nature produce the sublime? — EnPassant

Well said, and a very easy question to loose sight of.

Thanks, but going on the review, hardly mainstream ('discursive niche construction?' :yikes: ) And I'm sure, not what the post I was responding to has in mind. What that Richard Polt OP is criticizing, is the widespread tendency to simply assume that evolutionary biology provides a kind of default basis for normativity, along the lines of what is 'advantageous for survival' ('oldy-moldy darwinism'). It's more evolution as secular alternative to religion.

Where would I look for examples of this kind of approach? And in respect of human culture, how would 'normative patterns of functioning' be related to or grounded in evolutionary biology per se?

The elephant is our instinctual, emotional self, and our rationality is the rider. — Questioner

Plato had something similar to that, albeit a charioteer rather than an elephant. But it's a venerable metaphor.

My claim is that we are the result of our evolution - but it produced wide spectrums of behavior, emotions, aptitudes, perspectives, intellect, abilities, ways of thinking, etc. etc. — Questioner

Question, then: is it not possible that humans are under-determined by evolution? This would mean that, while certainly not denying the facts of evolution, it is legitimate to question the sense in which the human condition might be understood solely through the lens of biological theory.

The main drivers of adaptive behaviour are the ability to compete, and show up in most vertebrate behaviour as the famous 'Four Fs' of behaviour - fighting, feeding, fleeing, and sexual reproduction. It is not difficult to trace the influence of these behaviours on human activities. But how does this dictate or determine ethical behaviours?

Consider the fact that human action ranges to the extremes. People can perform extraordinary acts of altruism, including kindness toward other species — or they can utterly fail to be altruistic, even toward their own children. So whatever tendencies we may have inherited leave ample room for variation; our choices will determine which end of the spectrum we approach. This is where ethical discourse comes in — not in explaining how we’re “built,” but in deliberating on our own future acts. Should I cheat on this test? Should I give this stranger a ride? Knowing how my selfish and altruistic feelings evolved doesn’t help me decide at all. Most, though not all, moral codes advise me to cultivate altruism. But since the human race has evolved to be capable of a wide range of both selfish and altruistic behavior, there is no reason to say that altruism is superior to selfishness in any biological sense.

In fact, the very idea of an “ought” is foreign to evolutionary theory. It makes no sense for a biologist to say that some particular animal should be more cooperative, much less to claim that an entire species ought to aim for some degree of altruism. If we decide that we should neither “dissolve society” through extreme selfishness, as (biologist E. O.) Wilson puts it, nor become “angelic robots” like ants, we are making an ethical judgment, not a biological one. Likewise, from a biological perspective it has no significance to claim that Ishould be more generous than I usually am, or that a tyrant ought to be deposed and tried. In short, a purely evolutionary ethics makes ethical discourse meaningless. — Richard Polt, Anything but Human

He clearly states it. The fact that we all share many common elements of experience is not an argument against constructivism, because it simply means that we overall construct the world in the same way.

Constantly interpreting these questions as an ‘appeal to faith’ doesn’t do justice to them. Husserl was committed to a scientific approach.

I don’t think the passage I quoted considers that question. The key point for me was his objection to treating consciousness as part of the domain of naturalism. And the mistaking of the ‘idealized and objectified’ concepts from the natural sciences as providing a real account of reality in itself. (oh sorry that was a reference to the passage posted in the other thread.)

Is aporia a paradox? I recall in Theatetus that it was more a question to which there were several possible answers and no way to tell which is right.

In the Theaetetus, aporia emerges in the dialogue’s examination of knowledge, where Socrates leads the participants to recognize the inadequacy of various definitions. The state of aporia isn’t necessarily a paradox but rather a deliberate moment of intellectual humility or openness, signaling that more inquiry is needed.

That’s what I was getting at.

….a person who happened to want to create a universe…. — Clearbury

:roll:

Certainly the odds of there being a designer who wished to create a world such as this are going to be every bit as long as the odds that a world such as this arose by chance. — Clearbury

I don't think of God as being like a kind of super-engineer, a cosmic designer who literally oversees all the details of the cellular biology and organic life. Classical theism - not the beliefs of modern-day evangelicals on the whole - says that God is 'simple' (meaning not composed of parts) - not something which is more complex than the Universe that He has created.

The argument that I think is persuasive, at least to me, is the version of the cosmological anthropic argument that stresses the very small numbers of constants that are required to have very specific properties, in order for complex matter of any kind to form. 'Just Six Numbers' is the title of a book on that. Mind you, that book is not an 'argument from design' and its author stays mum on whether he believes in God, presenting that as one among other hypotheses. But the idea that all of what exists is dependent upon a very small number of specific constraints seems more in line with the idea of divine simplicity, than examination of the massive complexity of life and the universe.

As to the argument that the fundamental constraints are 'brute fact', and the existence of anything is dumb luck, I wonder if that amounts to any kind of explanation at all.

I say this, because the idea of God as a designer or super-engineer is wildly mistaken even for those who don't believe in any kind of higher power. I think it arises from attempting to scale up a naturalistic understanding to a cosmic scale, but it's not informed by any kind of insight into the who or what of God.

That said, Stephen Meyer's 'scientific intelligent design' is subject to criticism by other Christians, as I've already noted upthread, on similar grounds (e.g. here and here). For a popular-level insight into classical theism, have a read of God does not Exist, by Pierre Whalon (and no, it's not atheist polemics) and also He Is Who He Is, a review of a book by David Bentley Hart. These might, at least, make it a little clearer what the God is that we don't believe in.

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book named A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing. But, his "nothing" turned out to be a strange sort of something : a fluctuating quantum field, complete with governing laws and empowering energy. So, his "nothing" simply meant "no gods". — Gnomon

You might be interested to know that this book got a savage review in the New York Times from David Albert, who is a professor of physics and expert in interpretations of quantum physics:

The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on — and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story. — David Albert

Story goes that Krauss reacted furiously to this review and kicked up a huge stink. (This is all 12 years ago mind you.) In the end, Daniel Dennett had to take him aside and tell him to cool it.

Krauss may be a good science writer and communicator, but he's an absolutely crap philosopher as far as many are concerned.

Tyler Durden is smart, courageous, iron willed, etc. They have some of the key ingredients for flourishing in spades. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And there's the rub. If the individual conscience is the sole arbiter of virtue, then who's to say that's not good? Suffice to say that St Augustine holds convictions on that question which may not be shared by others, even if I myself can plainly see the sense in them. So again in the absence of a summum bonum it is hard to see what provides the pole to the moral compass, so to speak.

Yet, there’s a paradox here: the very recognition of our cognitive limitations seems to point to a desire to grasp something beyond them. Does this suggest an innate tension in human thought, or is it simply a reflection of the inherent constraints of our perspectival existence? — Tom Storm

The former. The 'world-knot'. My feeling is that due to the 'instinctive naturalism' that Husserl calls out in the post above, we've not only lost the connection to 'the unconditioned' but we've forgotten that we've forgotten. Heidegger's 'forgetfulness of being'. Phenomenology and existentialism are both concerned with that.

(There's a well-known anecdote about Heidegger, that one day a colleague found him reading D T Suzuki (who at the time was lecturing at Columbia University and was well-known in the academic world.) Heidegger looked somewhat abashed, but said, 'if I understand this man correctly, this is what I have been trying to say in all my writings'. Of course it would be overly simplistic to say that he was in any meaningful way Buddhist or would adopt Buddhism. But I think both sources have a sense of the existential crisis of modernity. )

So, there's two parts to your observation. One being agreement with the general idea of cognitivism or constructivism, but the second being about 'totalising claims about meaning'. I think that can only be a reference to claims about what is beyond or outside the domain of naturalism, which suggests the supernatural, hence 'woo' in today's lexicon.

Here I'm drawn to a Buddhist perspective (and there are Buddhist references in the original post.) The awareness of the world-creating activities of mind is actually the salient point of vipassana, insight meditation. The Dhammapada begins with a line something like 'our life is the creation of our mind'. Throughout the early Buddhist texts, the point that is repeated over and over is awareness of and insight into the chain of dependent origination which gives rise to conditioned consciousness. In this context, It's not so much a matter of 'getting behind' those patterns, as of seeing through them - which is an arduous discipline.

There is an unequivocal statement in the Suttas 'there is that which is unconditioned, that which is unmade, that which is unfabricated' (ref). But in Buddhism, that is not a matter of faith, like 'faith in God' in the West, but one of insight. It does require faith, in that one has to have faith in it in order to take on such a discipline. But Buddhism is generally critical of dogmatic views (dṛṣṭi) one way or the other. That is why mindfulness is compared with the Husserlian epochē, 'bare awareness' of the qualities of consciousness. The connection between Buddhism and phenomenology is quite well documented nowadays. There's a wiki entry on Husserl's readings of Buddhism.

Regrettably the usual reaction is 'oh, you mean religion'. An attitude that I think is very much a product of our specific cultural history and what religion means to us. The answer has to be yes and no - religious in some respects, but not in others, as it has been defined very specifically as to what is included and what isn't, in Western cultural history.

The emergence of organic life marks the beginning of a rudimentary form of awareness. Unlike inanimate matter, living organisms actively maintain themselves, preserving their internal organization while remaining distinct from their environment. This self-maintenance, or autopoiesis, introduces a basic subject-object relationship, where the organism differentiates itself from the "other" that surrounds it. Crucially, this perspective departs from a strictly materialist account, which often focuses solely on physical processes. Instead, it recognizes the primacy of relational dynamics and the concept of "otherness" as foundational to life. Hans Jonas and Evan Thompson highlight this, emphasizing that life is characterized by its orientation toward, and interaction with, the world, laying the groundwork for more developed forms of awareness and cognition. But the point is, it is relational from the get-go.

I've found an extract from Husserl's Critique of Naturalism, copied from the Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology. I was sent that as a .pdf a long time ago, early days on the other Forum, and reading this excerpt, I realise that it comprises most of what I know about Husserl, and also most or all of my own 'critique of naturalism'.

The critique of naturalism

Soon after writing the Logical Investigations, as we have seen, Husserl came to the view that his earlier researches had not completely escaped naturalism. After that Husserl constantly set his face against naturalism, but his most cogent critique is to be found in his 1911 essay, Philosophy as a Rigorous Science. Husserl thinks that all traditional philosophy, including Descartes and Kant, had treated consciousness as something having a completely natural being, a mere part of nature, and a dependent or epiphenomenal part at that. Even Kant had misunderstood transcendental psychology as a psychology. Husserl regards naturalism both as the dominant theoretical outlook of his age and also as deeply embedded in our ordinary assumptions about the world surrounding us. In other words, our pre-theoretical engagement with the world has an inbuilt bias towards naive naturalism. This is fine in our ordinary practices in the world, but when naturalism is elevated into an all-encompassing theoretical outlook, it actually becomes far removed from the natural attitude and in fact grossly distorts it. Husserl’s critique of naturalism is that it is a distorted conception of the fruits of scientific method which in itself is not inextricably wedded to a naturalist construal.

Husserl’s conception of naturalism relates to his understanding of the projects of John Locke, David Hume, and J.S. Mill, as well as nineteenth century positivists, especially Comte and Mach. Naturalism is the view that every phenomenon ultimately is encompassed within, and explained by, the laws of nature; everything real belongs to physical nature or is reducible to it. There are of course many varieties of naturalism, but Husserl’s own account in his 1911 essay more or less correctly summarises the naturalistic outlook:

"Thus the naturalist…sees only nature, and primarily physical nature. Whatever is, is either itself physical, belonging to the unified totality of physical nature, or it is, in fact, psychical, but then merely as a variable dependent on the physical, at best a secondary “parallel accomplishment”. Whatever is belongs to psychophysical nature, which is to say that it is univocally determined by rigid laws."

As naturalism has again become a very central concept primarily in contemporary analytic philosophy, largely due to W.V.O. Quine’s call for a naturalised epistemology, it is worth taking time here to elucidate further Husserl’s conception of naturalism. Indeed, precisely this effort to treat consciousness as part of the natural world is at the basis of many recent studies of consciousness, for example the work of Daniel Dennett or Patricia Churchland. Compare Husserl’s definition with that of David Armstrong for example:

"Naturalism I define as the doctrine that reality consists of nothing but a single all-embracing spatio-temporal system."

In Philosophy as a Rigorous Science, Husserl explicitly identifies and criticises the tendency of all forms of naturalism to seek the naturalisation of consciousness and of all ideas and norms. Naturalism as a theory involves a certain ‘philosophical absolutising’ of the scientific view of the world (Ideas I § 55); “it is a bad theory regarding a good procedure”. Certain characteristic methodological devices of the sciences, chiefly idealisation and objectification, have been misunderstood such that their objects are thought to yield the natural world as it is in itself, for example that nature is treated as a closed system of physical entities obeying laws, and everything else is squeezed out and treated as psychical, possibly even epiphenomenal. Indeed, a new science of psychology, with laws modelled on the mechanical laws of the physical domain, was then brought in to investigate this carved off subdomain, but it was guilty of reifying consciousness and examining it naively. Husserl constantly points out that such a division of the world into physical and psychical makes no sense. For Husserl, naturalism is not just only partial or limited in its explanation of the world, it is in fact self-refuting, because it has collapsed all value and normativity into merely physical or psychical occurrences, precisely the same kind of error made by psychologism when it sought to explain the normativity of logic in terms of actual, occurrent psychological states and the empirical laws governing them. The whole picture is absurd or ‘counter-sensical’ in that it denies the reality of consciousness and yet is based on assuming the existence of consciousness to give rise to the picture in the first place (Ideas I § 55). Or as Husserl says in the 1911 essay: “It is the absurdity of naturalizing something whose essence excludes the kind of being that nature has."

In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. — Routledge Introduction to Phenomenology, p139

@Relativist - note the reference to D M Armstrong.

Notice the connection between aporia and epochē.
— Wayfarer

This is interesting. Can you say more about that? — J

It was really rather a stray thought. The question was raised about how you would know if you really did momentarily experience the existence of another person in a dream state. I said it was an unanswereable question - hence ‘aporetic’, the kind of question for which there is no answer. Which has something in common with epochē, ‘suspension of judgement about what is not evident’. But to me, the awareness of those kinds of questions, while not knowing whether or how they can be answered, signals a kind of openness to possibility. Neither ruling out the possibility nor believing it.