That metaphysical questions are undecidable is also my view. As soon as we say anything like "reality is mind-dependent' or 'being is nothing but consciousnes' we have gone off-track.

Distinctions begin with consciousness.

Spinoza, as I read him, treats substance as being or true reality, not as "stuff". I think we get our concept of reality from our experience of a shared world. We distinguish between what is real for us and what is fictional or imaginary. We are dialectically capable of imagining that there is a reality beyond or in addition to how things appear to us. This comes with the realization that things do not depend in us for their existence, although their appearances obviously do depend on us as well as the objects which appear to us.

Yes, I can relate to that...I've had very similar experiences.

I take your point, but the applications of logic, the unfolding of deductive arguments, also occurs in time. Another point of difference is that causation is not logically necessary (Hume).

On another note, do you agree with @Gnomon that Bateson's' thought "seems to assume a "Great Chain of Being" ontology"? I'm not seeing it, but then Gnomon didn't explain why he thinks that.

Particular categories are defined by specific criteria, just as particular objects are defined by specific attributes.

I know what you mean but not specifically what you are referring to.

Close enough. When I see “way of thinking”, I interpret “way” as “method”. — Mww

So, you it seems are focusing on the method, and I'm focusing on the foundational presuppositions that support the method. The other thought that occurred to me was that not all ways of thinking are methodical.

I would not agree to that. A category is a universal, not a particular. — Metaphysician Undercover

The point was that each category is particular and distinct from all other categories.

Do ideas really occur in chains, or is this lineal (see Glossary) structure imposed on them by scholars and philosophers? How is the world of logic, which eschews "circular argument," related to a world in which circular trains of causation are the rule rather than the exception?

There is a sense in which all deductive thought is circular in that conclusions must be "contained" in premises, even if some considerable degree of unpacking is involved in deriving the former from the latter. Speaking less rigorously premises must at least be consistent with one another and with conclusions, so there is always an inherent "circling back" involved in chains of ideas.

I don't think the question is clear. It's so broad as to be virtually meaningless. Which science versus which religion? — Tom Storm

There is a general sense in which religion can be classed as faith-based, and science as evidence-based or it is a common trope that religion perpetuates superstition and science attempts to do away with it; but those are perhaps un-nuanced pictures.

Even if that were accepted the question remains as to what is meant by "versus": is it merely meant to signify a distinction between different approaches or is it meant to signify that the two must be adversaries? I guess on the view that religion is superstitious whereas science seeks to abolish superstition they would necessarily be seen as adversarial.

The law of identity says that "a thing" (i.e. a particular) is the same as itself. It serves to differentiate the use of "same" in reference to particular individuals from the use of "same" in reference to type or category, and avoid the sophistry employed through the use of equivocation and the employment of this category mistake. — Metaphysician Undercover

This seems like pointing to a non-issue: categories are particular just as indivdual objects are.

Yes, but they agreed that we did not need two substances. — Dfpolis

AFAIK, Aristotle posited a potentially infinite number of substances in that he thought that the primary substances are individual objects.

I wasn't questioning the laws of logic, I was referring to thinking on the basis of some preferred premise or other; so, yeah, not a case of preferring to think either consistently or inconsistently, rationally or irrationally. Not sure if that was what you had in mind, though...

Who is "us"? Mankind as a whole, any particular person, or a particular person (but not some other person)? — baker

I would have thought it should be obvious that I was referring to the way things generally appear to humans; you know, things like 'trees have leaves', 'water flows downhill,', 'clear skies are blue' and countless other well-established commonalities of appearances.

To wit: I once said to someone that Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady" was one of my favorite books. He replied, "You're wrong, because this is actually a very boring book."

From this, it's clear he took for granted that there is an objective reality, that a book has a particular immanent value, and that he knows "how things really are" while I don't. Other conversations with him supported this.


The differences in locutions are not superficial. — baker

I think what you say here has no relevance to what it aims to respond to. In any case, the person who told you're wrong to like Portrait of a Lady was speaking idiotically; it's uncontroversial that there is no accounting for taste, no possibility of establishing objective aesthetic criteria. Anyway all you report saying was that you liked it and not claiming that it is a great work. That said, if canonicity is at all to be thought to be a reliable guide to quality, the book is widely regarded as a classic.

I might argue that point. Ya know….we cannot think a thing then think we have thought otherwise, but we can think a thing and talk about it as if we thought of it otherwise. You cannot fake your thoughts but you can fake your language regarding your thoughts. — Mww

I would have thought the "preferred" would take care of that...but perhaps not with everyone given human diversity.

Or is it that the precept or rule doesn’t demand sensation from appearance? — Mww

It's not a precept or rule of phenomenology as far as I am aware, it's just my own take. I realize of course that space and time are not sense objects as trees, smells and sounds are, but I stll think that we see extension and feel duration.

That aside, if the things as they are in themselves is unknowable I think we then have no warrant for claiming that it is not spatiotemporal. Of course, it would presumably not be spatiotemporal in the same way as appearances are, but it seems plausible to think that it must be such as to give rise to the spatiotemporal things, and I don't find the idea that that is entirely down to the mind convincing.

All that said I acknowledge that the mind or consciousness could possibly be ontologically foundational, I just tend to lean the other way.

Lemme ask you this: there is in the text the condition that space is allowed “empirical reality in regard to all possible external experience”. Would you accept that his empirical reality is your appearance? — Mww

Yes, I find that idea acceptable. But if we want to go beyond phenomenalism and speculate as to what could give rise to that empirical reality, then I think we find ourselves entirely in the realm where the individual sense of plausibility rules.

Yeah, could be. But you know me….I shun language predication like the plague — Mww

And I think I share (at least some of) your concerns about OLP. I could just as easily have said "preferred ways of thinking" as I have little doubt that our preferred ways of talking reflect that.

From your position, I wonder whether you think there might be something sufficiently intersubjective – not to say objective – in “creative imaginative thinking” that could take the place of rational argument and inspire consensus? Or might we need to supplement imagination with rhetoric in order to persuade? — J

I don't know. I know what seems plausible to me, and I know that differs from what seems plausible to some others. I don't see myself as being concerned with persuading but just with trying to articulate what seems most plausible to me concerning metaphysical speculation about the nature of the real. I can easily understand that others with different foundational assumptions do not share my sense of plausibility.

I don't believe I have an agenda or preference for say physicalism vs idealism; perhaps if anything I'd rather live in an idealist world because it opens up the possibility of some kind of immortality. I get it that others don't like the idea of immortality at all, but I, for one, would choose to live forever if it were possible. That said I find physicalism more plausible, so I am not being motivated by wishful thinking. I often interact with others who I believe are motivated by wishful thinking, but I acknowledge I could be mistaken and even if I were correct, I don't imagine that i could ever convince them of that.

Thanks for starting a thread on one of my favorite thinkers. I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, but this may motivate me to re-read the text, in which case I'll try to contribute. I'll certainly follow along in any case.

Any argument is rational if it is consistent with its most basic premises, and I don't think basic premises are rationally derived, but are products of creative imaginative thinking. So, disagreement exists in philosophy largely on account of people preferring different basic premises.

As someone earlier pointed out there is agreement amongst realists or materialists and idealists, for example, but not between the different camps, obviously, because the different camps accept different things as being fundamental.

So….he was mistaken in that he didn’t attribute real existence to space and time? Or, you think he should have? The theory holds that things-in-themselves possess real existence, and are the origin-in-kind of that which appears to sensibility. — Mww

You'll probably disagree with me (we all have different ways of thinking about these things, apparently) but I see space and time as being for us, just as objects are, appearances. I think I can see spatial extension, and feel duration, just as I see and feel objects. So, for me the status of space and time is no different regarding the "in-itself" than is the case with things.

I think there is a real cosmos, which existed long before there was consciousness of any kind, and I think it always has been undergoing constant change, that it is extensive and always has been. I see time as change and duration, and space as extension, and I see no reason not to think those are real attributes of the cosmos, which do not rely for their existence on appearing to cognitive beings,

I realize that a cosmos without cognitive beings is in a sense "blind", it appears to nothing and no one, and in that sense, we might say that it is virtually non-existent, but I think that view is anthropocentric. Something does not need to be seen in order to be visible.

So, I interpret Kant's idea of in-itself as signifying that we know only what appears to us, which is not to say we know nothing of consciousness-independent real things, but that the reality of those things is not exhausted by how they appear to us and other cognitive beings.

I think many of these disagreements come down to preferred ways of talking, and underlying the apparent differences produced by different locutions there may be more agreement than there often appears to be. It is remarkable how important these metaphysical speculations seem to be to folk. I enjoy it as a creative exercise of the imagination.

I think Rosatom holds something in the range of 90% of the total market share, including all the related services (maintenance, waste disposal, etc.). — Tzeentch

Rosatom has a 38% world market share and in 2019 led in global uranium enrichment services (36%) and covers 16% of the global nuclear fuel market.

From here

:ok:

I'll be honest with you: there have been many times where I thought I have posed salient and difficult questions regarding what I have understood to be your position, only to find that no response is forthcoming.

Of course, I acknowledge you have no obligation to respond, and I don't really mind. There are some commonalities between our ways of thinking but there are also significant divergences. I'm one who likes to thrash these things out, but if you don't want to, that's OK too.

My own phenomenology-inspired view rejects the idea that reality is hidden somehow 'outside' of a so-called subjectivity that is thought of as 'inside.' — plaque flag

That is nothing like what I've been saying. Do you claim nothing exists outside of cognition? For me reality is vast. much vaster than human cogntion, so I see your position as a return to anthropcentrism and anthropomorphism, and as such it has little appeal for me. Different strokes, I guess.

I don't think I can be accused of dodging. I write a lot of responses. — Wayfarer

I haven't explicitly accused you of dodging. That said, I do have the impression that you are prone to withdraw when the going gets tough.

I see no reason to do that, and it just seems logically and conceptually wrong.

FWIW, I realize it's a bold position, but 'just seems' is only a report of an initial reaction. It doesn't show how the position is wrong. — plaque flag

I said why I thought it is wrong; it conflates existence with cognition, and I don't think that conflation is helpful. Also, it is not a general feature of philosophy to prove that positions are wrong. So, I'm not here to convince you, just to tell what I think and why I think it, and to hear others' accounts and comment on how I might agree or disagree with them.

:up:

He was anticipated by Aristotle, Aquinas and others in the Aristotelian tradition. — Dfpolis

Spinoza's idea of substance was very different than Aristotle's. Not sure about Aquinas' since I am little familiar with his writings.

What I mean by such realism (the kind I reject) is the postulation of 'aperspectival stuff' being primary in some sense, existing in contrast to ( and prior to ) mind or consciousness.

Metaphysically, realism is committed to the mind-independent existence of the world investigated by the sciences. This idea is best clarified in contrast with positions that deny it. For instance, it is denied by any position that falls under the traditional heading of “idealism”, including some forms of phenomenology, according to which there is no world external to and thus independent of the mind. — plaque flag

I'm well familiar with those positions. Where we disagree is that I don't see perspective as being relevant to existence, except within the context of perception. So, saying that stuff cannot exist without a perspective, to my way of thinking, conflates existence with cognition. I see no reason to do that, and it just seems logically and conceptually wrong.

I don't think science needs to say that we know anything more of things than how they appear to us, while acknowledging that appearances do not exhaust the being of things, and that conjecturing about that being is not science but metaphysics, a realm where strict decidability is not to be expected.

But we experience them, from or through our human perspective. — plaque flag

Yes, of course we experience everything through our human perspective. We are trying to work out what is best and most plausible to say about things from within that context. Regarding that I don't say that we know anything beyond what we can experience, but we can conjecture beyond that and argue for what seems most plausible to say.

I acknowledge that there will inevitably be disagreement and no way of definitively establishing the truth, since we all have our own groundless and perhaps affectively motivated starting presuppositions, so I don't expect us to all end up on the same page.

I would hope that this process might show all of us where our attachments to particular ideas (confirmation biases) lie, and that we are capable of letting go of what we might want to be the case, if we can come to see just what those biases are.

And I'd say that the sentience of those creatures 'is' also the being of the world. — plaque flag

This is an important point of disagreement, I think. I would agree that the sentience of creatures is the being of the world, but I don't count it as the whole being of the world.

It surprises me that you say you challenge scientific realism; that seems inconsistent with your own avowed direct realism. What do you understand scientific realism to consist in, and on what grounds do you challenge it.

I did that in the OP. I provide the passage about Schopenhauer's philosophy by way of showing points of agreement with at least one historic philosopher. — Wayfarer

What matters (to me at least) is open discussion and cogent arguments, though, and points of agreement with historic philosophers (authorities) are worthless without cogent arguments presented in our own words and accompanied by a willingness to hear them critiqued and being prepared to sustain engagement as long as is required to either arrive at agreement or agreement to disagree.

In my view, the point is to see that the object is not hidden behind or within itself. It's just we are temporal beings, grasping the objects over time, seeing this aspect and then perhaps that one. — plaque flag

To me you seem to be misunderstanding the idea that objects are not necessarily merely the sum of their attributes. We only know of objects, the attributes that are accessible to our human cognition. The same goes for other species. But there may be completely unknowable dimensions of objects.

Kant's final claim is recklessly wrong. If space and time are only on the side of appearance, we no longer have a reason trust the naive vision of a world mediated by sense organs in the first place. — plaque flag

I have always thought that Kant is wrong about space and time: if there can be things in themselves, then why not space and time in themselves? Kant has no warrant to claim that space and time exist only in perceptual appearances, any more than he would to claim (which I think he doesn't) that objects only exist in perceptual appearances.

For me the distinction between primary and secondary qualities still stands.

I wish people would carry on discussions in their own words instead of posting walls of text which are quotations from supposed authorities. The argument from authority is a weak form of doing philosophy in my view; we need to learn to think for ourselves. (That said, I'm obviously not condemning reading other philosophers, but surely if we have mastered their arguments, we can present them in our own words).

Not to be difficult, but claiming that all metaphysical questions are undecidable seems to decide an important metaphysical question. — plaque flag

I don't see it as a metaphysical question, but a phenomenological one. It is a phenomenological fact that metaphysical questions are undecidable. The alternative would be to collapse metaphysics into phenomenology; in some respects, both Kant and Heidegger do this, but then metaphysics is no longer metaphysics, as traditionally conceived, and we have lost a valid distinction between avenues of investigation.

I don't say the undecidability of metaphysics disqualifies it, just as I would not say the ambiguity of poetry renders it pointless. metaphysics as traditionally conceived is a poetic and logical exercise of the imagination; it shows us what we can coherently imagination, but it cannot tell us anything about the world or the ultimate nature of reality, as it once purported to be able to.

In being,
present in time at the given moment is only that narrow
ridge of the momentary fugitive "now," rising out of the
"not yet now'' and falling away into the "no longer now”

This is a result of thinking of the present moment as separate. Now is not fugitive, it is perennial. Future and past also are always now, else they have no existence at all.

So, according to these and many other mainstream accounts, realists hold that universals have some mind-independent existence, while nominalists hold that universals do not have such mind-independent existence. — Joshua Hochschild, What’s Wrong with Ockham?

It seems to me odd that @Wayfarer will say that universals have mind-independent existence, but he will not admit that ordinary objects do. As I see it universals, or generalities, are only possible on account of the observed differences between, and commonalties shared by, objects.

Of course, it is the observer that formulates these observed differences and commonalities as generalities and specificities, but it would seem implausible to think that these are created ex nihilo or arbitrarily by the observer; it seems more plausible, to me at least, to think that the observed differences and commonalities are real attributes of the objects and do not depend for their existence on being observed, even though they obviously do depend on the observer for being apprehended and distinguished.

Most contemporary philosophers of mind employ a Cartesian conceptual space in which reality is (at least potentially) divided into res extensa and res cogitans. Then, they ask: how res cogitans could possibly interact with res extensa? — Dfpolis

Spinoza already solved this Cartesian puzzle. There are not two substances, extensa and cogitans, but one substance seen under two attributes. This renders the interaction problem moot.

"Fact" is an ambiguous word in that it can be taken to signify a statement of an actuality or simply an actuality;
— Janus

Disagree. A fact, as the argument states, is specific. — Wayfarer

Your response does not contradict what I said. States of affairs or actualities are specific, and so are statements about them. If the actualities were not specific, then no specific statements about them could be made.

You speak about the word "fact" as though only one true definition pertains to it (the one that serves your argument, of course). I think it is a matter of usages, and the usages are patently equivocal. To put it another way 'fact' is an ambiguous term.

Finally, after 20 odd pages of discussion, you still seem to think idealism is saying that 'without an observer reality does not exist'. I do not say that. — Wayfarer

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I think it raises a pertinent issue. If the in-itself nature of things cannot be known, we cannot with certainty say whether they exist in themselves or do not. From the fact that we cannot be sure whether they exist or not, it does not logically follow that they neither exist nor do not exist.

As I understand it Kant posits things in themselves because of the absurdity that would be involved in saying that something appears, but that there is nothing that appears. If there is something that appears, then it follows logically that the something that appears exists. So, I say that what we can say about the in-itself is governed only by logic, since we cannot know the in-itself nature of things, and it seems absurd to say that there could be something non-existent whose in-itself nature cannot be known.

But 'exists' means 'to have an identity' - to be this, as distinct from that. And I can't see how you can have that, without an observer. — Wayfarer

I think this is a matter of logic; to be this or that no observer would seem to be required. To be distinguished as this or that an observer is required. Something has first to be this or that in order to be able to be distinguished as being this or that.

A fact does not hold in the universe if it has not been explicitly formulated. That should be obvious, because a fact is specific. In other words, statements-of-fact are produced by living observers, and thereby come into existence as a result of being constructed. It is only after they have been constructed (in words or symbols) that facts come to exist. Commonsense wisdom holds the opposite view: It holds that facts exist in the universe regardless of whether anyone notices them, and irrespective of whether they have been articulated in words.

I don't see it that way at all. Again, it is a matter of logic. "Fact" is an ambiguous word in that it can be taken to signify a statement of an actuality or simply an actuality; so the encyclopedia is a compendium of facts in the first sense, but not in the second.

If 'fact' can signify either 'actuality' or 'statement of actuality' then it follows that on the first definition facts can exist without being observed, but on the second definition they obviously need to an observer who can, at least in principle, state them.

I don't think citing QM helps your case, because it trades on one interpretation of the so-called "observer problem", by interpreting "observer" to mean "conscious observer". In any case QM seems to show that all things consist in different and unique configurations of energy, and there seems to be no reason that configurations of energy should not exist absent observers, or that what pertains to the microphysical world regarding its counter-intuitive behavior should be translatable to the macrophysical world.

I claim that we can only talk sensibly about something at least possibly experienceable by us. I'm saying connected to our experience, not fully and finally or even mostly given, for even everyday objects are 'transcendent' in the Husserlian sense: they suggest an infinity of possible adumbrations. Note that I think a person can be alone with an experience --- be the only person who sees or knows an entity. — plaque flag

Of course, I agree that we can talk sensibly only about what we are familiar with. And I agree that everyday objects are transcendental, where that term is taken to signify that our experience of them cannot, even in principle, exhaust their natures or apprehend them in their wholeness.

As you say there are perhaps an infinite number of possible "adumbrations" of any object. But it does not follow that these transcendental objects which appear to us do not exist, or that they are not more than the totality of their possible adumbrations.

I meant you are stipulating that the sense of the term "existence" should be restricted to "exists for us".

As we look down on that city in the valley, it exists only as the-valley-for, never from no perspective at all. — plaque flag

You are appealing to a narrow concept of existence here.

Metaphysics has to reduce the many to the one, and if we assume the many is truly real this cannot be done. I think you'd have to admit that the incomprehension of philosophers suggests that they're missing a trick. . — FrancisRay

I see it more as reducing duality to non-duality; non-duality being neither one nor many. Duality is simply based on the notion of separation, a conception which is essential to thought and perception, but has no being or provenance beyond that.

Clearly the need being fulfilled is not salvation so religion must be fulfilling other needs.. — praxis

I don't think it is quite as clear as you seem to think it is. but I do agree that religion also fulfills other needs; it can provide a sense of community and caring for example. It can also satisfy tribal impulses; or the desire to belong to a group that stands for some ideal. It may even satisfy pride in some cases or the need to be told what to do.

There is a fourth possibility, and that is that there are many people who have psychological needs for salvation, but that there is no real possibility of the kind of salvation people are after, no rea salvation.

In that case salvation is an illusion and those who think they are saved are deluded. That delusion may be a happier state than desperately feeling a need for salvation, though. I don't think anything can be imposed on people en masse for long that does not satisfy, or appear to satisfy, some need they feel.

But saying, for example, that someone "inoculated people against reality" is already an interpretation of his act, not the act itself. Of course, then there are those who will say it's not so, that it's not merely an interpretation. — baker

If Trump lies, some may interpret it as him speaking truth. Nonetheless it seems plausible to think there is a fact of the matter as to whether he lied. When it comes to whether Trump's vision for the US and the world is a good one or not, then we might be harder pressed to justify claiming there is a fact of the matter about that, even though it might seem obvious that his vision is bogus.