The individual’s experience is simply a small, distinctive sphere of limited experience within true experience.

I think this is close to what Leibniz was getting at. Each of us is a kind of copy of the world. But the world has no original. It only exists perspectively. But that's not so much an empirical claim but an appeal to what we can even mean by worldly objects, which gets us back to J S Mill.

57. And as the same town, looked at from various sides, appears quite different and becomes as it were numerous in aspects [perspectivement]; even so, as a result of the infinite number of simple substances, it is as if there were so many different universes, which, nevertheless are nothing but aspects [perspectives] of a single universe, according to the special point of view of each Monad.

https://plato-philosophy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-Monadology-1714-by-Gottfried-Wilhelm-LEIBNIZ-1646-1716.pdf

This same town becomes numerous in aspects. The town stands for the world, which exists only perspectively, in billions of related but differing 'copies' and yet is glued together by our empathy and language. We build the scientific image and so on. We have Heidegger's 'one,' which is a taken-for-granted collective habit of interpretation and practical skill. So we look right through perspectival being itself.

An interesting book by a 60s-70s author whose name is rapidly receding in the past: ‘The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe is a 1959 book by Arthur Koestler. — Wayfarer

I took a look at the Wikipedia page for the book, and I didn't get a very flattering impression. The title didn't sound like something which someone well informed about the thought processes of scientists would chose. There is a lot of work involved in developing intuitive faculties that can solve problems 'in the background'.

Looking into the background of Koestler himself, I didn't see any reason to think he was someone with relevant expertise.

I don't think I'll be looking into it further, but thanks for bringing it to my attention.

From an excellent blog post on idealism and non-duality, — Wayfarer

:up:

the key to non-dual consciousness lies in recognizing that one’s individual person is part of the object side of experience (together with the ‘outside’ world) and that therefore the individual person cannot be the true subject of experience – this true subject being rather non-individual consciousness free from the subject-object duality of individual and outside world.

This is exactly what I'm also saying. The empirical subject is in the world. The transcendental 'subject' is so pure-transparent-diaphanous ( a mere 'nothingness') that we finally grasp it as being plain and simple. The outside vanishes with the inside. We can call the stream 'transcendental consciousness' or 'pure experience,' but these subject-biased terms are a bit misleading.

the duality of subject and external object – and thus the sensory affection of the former by the latter – is a phenomenon appearing in transcendental consciousness and therefore not a property of this consciousness which pre-conditions all phenomenality.

In this sense, Kant’s recognition of the phenomenal nature of the inner sense / outer sense duality should have clearly shown to him the non-dual nature of transcendental consciousness itself. That is, it should have made it perfectly clear to him that the transcendental subject, whose self-consciousness unifies all phenomena, is a non-dual subject, i.e. a subject without an external object (“one without a second” in the language of the Upanishads).

https://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com/2021/02/non-duality-and-problems-of-western_12.html

(an older post, from page 16)

That makes a great deal of sense to me. Formal and final causes provide the raison d'etre of things, in their absence, there is a broad streak of irrationality in modern culture. — Wayfarer

True, I agree with that.

I've backtracked through the dialogue to better respond to your criticism, as you're a serious thinker and I would like to believe I've responded adequately. — Wayfarer

Okay, thanks. 'Wish I had more time at the moment. :blush:

You're saying it's pre-existent, and its discovered by us, which is an empirical fact. I'm not denying the empirical fact. When you say this, you have, on the one hand, the object, and on the other, ideas and sensations which are different to the object, as they occur within the mind. You're differentiating them - there is a pre-existent shape, and here, the ideas and sensations are in your mind. — Wayfarer

Yes, right.

I agreed a matter of empirical fact, boulders do have shapes, but the substance of the OP is the role of the observing mind in providing the framework within which empirical facts exist and are meaningful. — Wayfarer

It seems that you have a stark premise that empirical facts exist. But the question is whether the thrust of the OP and of Pinter's thought is compatible with that premise. They may be irreconcilable. For example, it may be that shape is an "empirical fact" and Pinter's theory does not allow for shape (as a fact), in which case Pinter's theory would be at odds with that sort of "empirical fact."

The disagreement is over whether we can know external reality as it is in itself. — Leontiskos

It is indeed. I'm arguing that there is a subjective element in all knowledge, without which knowledge is impossible, but which is not in itself apparent in experience. — Wayfarer

Yes, but we all agree to that. The question, to put it bluntly, is whether the glass distorts. Or conditions, if you prefer.

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

Yes, good point. I agree.

, - Interesting, thank you.

I understand the temptation to say there may be completely unknowable dimensions of objects, but I'm asking what kind of meaning can be given to such a claim. It's not only unfalsifiable, it's impossible to parse at all. In my view, any attempt to give such a claim meaning will involve connecting it to possible experience. — plaque flag

Right.

- Good quotes. I wish you had given the sources.

- This is what I don't really agree with.

Thanks too for the various quotes on page 18.

It seems that you have a stark premise that empirical facts exist. — Leontiskos

I've said a number of times, I'm not questioning empirical facts. This is also Kant's attitude, as he was at the same time an empirical realist and a transcendental idealist. Kant acknowledges that in our everyday experience, we interact with a world of objects that apparently exist independently of our perceptions. This is what he refers to as empirical realism. In other words, Kant recognizes that we can reasonably assume the existence of a mind-independent external world. We perceive objects, interact with them, and make empirical claims about their properties. (Shouldn't forget Kant also lectured in scientific subjects and his theory of nebular formation, modified by LaPlace, is still considered mainstream.)

At the same time, the principles of transcendental idealism concerns the nature of empirical knowledge itself (which is why it's called 'critical'). Empirical knowledge is shaped and structured by the inherent categories and concepts of the human mind. These mental structures, including space, time, causality, and the categories like substance and quantity, are not inherent properties of the external world but rather conditions for the possibility of experience. (This is where Kant's philosophy dovetails with the cognitive science approach. There's a scholar named Andrew Brook who has written extensively about Kant and cognitive science, including contributing some of the SEP articles on Kant. Wiki entry.)

Kant argues that while the external world exists independently of our perceptions, we can never know it as it is in itself. Instead, we can only know the world as it appears to us - as phenomena mediated through our mental categories and senses. This is the much-debated distinction of phenomenal and noumena, appearance and reality, as depicted in Kant.

Contrasted with that, the common sense view, and maybe even the view of scientific realism, is what Kant would have designated transcendental realism. Transcendental realism is a term used to describe a philosophical perspective that asserts the existence of a reality independent of the mind, which appears to be the testimony of common sense, as the world plainly precedes our own existence. But in so doing it over-values our sensory and intellectual faculties - it's at once hubristic and naive.

The question, to put it bluntly, is whether the glass distorts. — Leontiskos

Again the analogy is misleading. It's not as if you have one party, that sees with eyes, and another, that sees without them, so you can compare the two. The question would be better put 'do the eyes distort?' - to which the response is, in their absence there is no capacity to see. It's not as if there is a choice.

Your first paragraph contradicts your second, and this is what I anticipated when I said, "They may be irreconcilable." You say that you are not questioning empirical facts, and then you immediately go on to question empirical facts. Or you redefine them. You have been doing the same thing at a more concrete level with regard to shape.

The question would be better put 'do the eyes distort?' - to which the response is, in their absence there is no capacity to see. — Wayfarer

<Right>, but the question, again, is what it means to see; what is the nature of the glass. The disagreement has always been over "whether we can know external reality as it is in itself."

Your first paragraph contradicts your second, — Leontiskos

But it doesn't. It simply states that empiricism is not the sole arbiter of what it true. There's no contradiction.

the question, again, is what it means to see; what is the nature of the glass. — Leontiskos

Remember that in this analogy, 'glass' represents 'the act of knowing'. The nature of knowledge is what is at issue.

Good quotes. I wish you had given the sources. — Leontiskos

Thanks ! And sorry about leaving out the sources. Here they are:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm

- Thanks :up:

This is what I don't really agree with. — Leontiskos

You mean this : Objects 'are' possible and actual experiences ?

For me the point is to examine with real seriousness what we mean by 'physical object.' I always see the spatial object as a kind of continuous series of adumbrations from various perspectives. To be sure, I don't experience the object as a mere projection. Instead the wolrd pours in. I live in the system of possibilities that is only analyzed theoretically, brought to attention to phenomenology, for instance.

In his Phenomenology of Perception (first published in French in 1945), Merleau-Ponty gave a phenomenological analysis of perception and elaborated how one constitutes one's perceptual experiences, which are essentially perspectival.

The essential partiality of our view of things, he argued, their being given only in a certain perspective and at a certain moment in time, does not diminish their reality, but on the contrary establishes it, as there is no other way for things to be co-present with us and with other things than through such "Abschattungen" (profiles, adumbrations).

The thing transcends our view, but is manifest precisely by presenting itself to a range of possible views. The object of perception is immanently tied to its background—to the nexus of meaningful relations among objects within the world. Because the object is inextricably within the world of meaningful relations, each object reflects the other (much in the style of Leibniz's monads).

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Perspectivism

But it doesn't. It simply states that empiricism is not the sole arbiter of what it true. There's no contradiction. — Wayfarer

The microcosm here is the idea that boulders possess a mind-independent quality of shape (link), and you specifically called this an "empirical matter" (link). Presumably such is an empirical fact.

But then—and this occurs at the more general level as well—this empirical fact gets redefined to be a sensory phenomenon (link), and that is how we continually fall away from the point at issue, which is "whether we can know external reality as it is in itself." Thus you seem to simultaneously admit and deny the empirical fact that the boulder has shape in itself. In fact we fall away from the point at issue so consistently, that my task becomes merely designating the thesis at issue.

Yes, good point. I agree. — Leontiskos

Thanks. Once this criticism occurred to me (I was inspired by Nietzsche*), the absurdity of Kant's system (as a whole, but not in all its details) became obvious. Indirect realism is, without realizing it, dependent upon direct realism.

Others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be the work of our organs! — Nietzsche

https://gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm

You mean this : Objects 'are' possible and actual experiences ? — plaque flag

This is the quote I can't agree with:

Anyone who supposes that if all the perceiving subjects were removed from the world then the objects, as we have any conception of them, could continue in existence all by themselves has radically failed to understand what objects are. — Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, Bryan Magee

---

Once this criticism occurred to me (I was inspired by Nietzsche*), the absurdity of Kant's system (as a whole, but not in all its details) became obvious. — plaque flag

Right.

Indirect realism is, without realizing it, dependent upon direct realism. — plaque flag

Exactly! And thus if indirect realism's critique of direct realism is thoroughgoing (as Kant's tends to be), then it saws off the branch on which it sits (as you already noted). That's the part that is always hard to see for the first time.

Thus you seem to simultaneously admit and deny the empirical fact that the boulder has shape in itself. — Leontiskos

When we find any object, we will generally find that it has qualities and attributes such as shape, which pre-date our discovery of it. But at the same time, shape is an attribute of our sensory apprehension of the object. Whether it has shape outside that, or whether it has inherent attributes outside our sensory apprehension of it, is unknowable as a matter of principle, as we have to bring it to mind or present it to the senses, to discuss it. Shapes, spatial relationships, duration, position, and all of the manifold which makes such judgements possible, are brought to the picture by the observing mind.

When we find any object, we will generally find that it has qualities and attributes such as shape, which pre-date our discovery of it. But at the same time, shape is an attribute of our sensory apprehension of the object. Whether it has shape outside that, or whether it has inherent attributes outside our sensory apprehension of it, is unknowable as a matter of principle... — Wayfarer

Then you are simply remiss in claiming that the object has a quality of shape that "pre-dates our discovery of it." The same contradiction is present.

It's not a contradiction. Time itself is one of the primary intuitions, the condition of our experience of the object. There is no time from the perspective of the object, as the object has no perspectives, plainly. We ourselves can arrive at an empirical estimate of the age of the object, its material, etc, but again, that is all reliant on our conscious ability. Time is not inherent in the Universe itself, it is not real independently of the observer. It is something brought to the picture by the observing mind. That is the point of the quote from the cosmologist that I mentioned:

The problem of including the observer in our description of physical reality arises most insistently when it comes to the subject of quantum cosmology - the application of quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole - because, by definition, 'the universe' must include any observers.

Andrei Linde has given a deep reason for why observers enter into quantum cosmology in a fundamental way. It has to do with the nature of time. The passage of time is not absolute; it always involves a change of one physical system relative to another, for example, how many times the hands of the clock go around relative to the rotation of the Earth. When it comes to the Universe as a whole, time looses its meaning, for there is nothing else relative to which the universe may be said to change. This 'vanishing' of time for the entire universe becomes very explicit in quantum cosmology, where the time variable simply drops out of the quantum description. It may readily be restored by considering the Universe to be separated into two subsystems: an observer with a clock, and the rest of the Universe.

So the observer plays an absolutely crucial role in this respect. Linde expresses it graphically: 'thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time', and, 'we are together, the Universe and us. The moment you say the Universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...in the absence of observers, our universe is dead'. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

There's a long interview with Linde in the Closer to Truth series, where he explains this in more detail, in his rather charmingly Russian-accented English. (Linde is one of the main authors of the inflationary universe theory, as well as the theory of eternal inflation and inflationary multiverse. )

has radically failed to understand what objects are. — Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, Bryan Magee

I can't say what Magee meant, of course, but I embraced this quote from my own [confessedly weird ] 'perspectival phenomenalist' position. What I can mean by 'broom' is (as I see it) limited by my experience. To be sure, this experience is always 'fringed' or 'horizonal.'

I can chisel ESSE EST PERCIPI on a mountainside somewhere. Then somehow all of the species dies, and that inscription remains. But I understand its so remaining in terms of possible experience. If someone had survived, they might have found it and read it. If aliens arrive, they may be able to decode it. So for me the point is semantic. The neorationalism inspired by Brandom starts to sneak in here.

An agent is rational in Brandom’s preferred sense just in case she draws inferences in a way that is evaluable according to the inferential role of the concepts involved in those inferences, where the inferential role of a concept is specified in terms of the conditions under which an agent would be entitled to apply, or prohibited from applying, that concept, together with what else an agent would be entitled or committed to by the appropriate application of the concept. This articulation of the content of concepts in terms of the inferential role of those concepts, and the specification of those roles in terms of proprieties of inference, is combined with a distinctive brand of pragmatism. Instead of the content of a concept providing an independent guide or rule that governs which inferences are appropriate, it is the actual practices of inferring carried out in a community of agents who assess themselves and each other for the propriety of their inferences that explains the content of the concepts.
https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/reason-in-philosophy-animating-ideas/

Note that inferential role semantics is a flavor of structuralism, which is famously the salt to phenomenology's pepper, the peanutbutter to its jelly. A concept (to some degree) has its meaning in the role it plays in which inferences are allowed and disallowed. Meaning is fundamentally normative, systematic, and social, and concepts all function in sets. FWIW, it's this deep sociality of langauge that glues all the 'monads'/perspectives together. We intend [ discuss ] the same objects in the same world, however differently we perceive them.

Exactly! And thus if indirect realism's critique of direct realism is thoroughgoing (as Kant's tends to be), then it saws off the branch on which it sits (as you already noted). That's the part that is always hard to see for the first time. — Leontiskos

It may be hard to see because radical indirect realism is so sexy. I watched a Donald Hoffman Ted talk, and it was gripping. I knew it was fallacious and confused, but I still enjoyed it. I felt the pull of the sci-fi. I could be one of the those in on the Secret, while others were lost in the shadow play on the cave wall.

- Thank you for that. I agree very much, and it is nice to find common ground. But I won't elaborate so as to avoid raining on Wayfarer's parade. :halo:

---

- Okay, thanks, that helps some. The "inferential role" idea adds a great deal. Sorry for the short responses. I am trying not to get trapped in this thread again. :sweat:

The "inferential role" idea adds a great deal. — Leontiskos

It'd be great to get your thoughts on this aging OP, but no pressure.

But I won't elaborate so as to avoid raining on Wayfarer's parade. — Leontiskos

You'd need to be in the same street to do that ;-)

For the classical realist the extramental world can be known in itself precisely through the rational, perspective-grounded mind. — Leontiskos

Let me know if my paraphrase is acceptable ?

The object itself (better phrase for my money than the object-in-itself) and not some representation of it is known. Others may see the object itself from the other side of the room, and they will therefore see it differently, but they also see the object itself, not a representation.

I think we agree on:

Mediation is unnecessary here. Perspective is the better way to approach the varying of the object's givenness. The complicated machinery of vision is a often-mentioned red herring, in my view. The intended object is always out there in the world. 'I see the object' exists in Sellars' 'space of reasons.'

For the classical realist the extramental world can be known in itself precisely through the rational, perspective-grounded mind. — Leontiskos

BECAUSE the rational intellect knows the forms of things. Google 'the union of knower and known'. Most of the top results are either Islamic or Thomist. Why? Because they preserve Aristotle's 'active intellect', with the remnant of the Plato's forms (modified by Aristotle), which in turn were inherited from the dialogue with Parmenides. THAT is what becomes lost in the transition to modernity, where instead 'the object' is endowed with 'mind-independent' status as the criterion of what is real. That is what I'm arguing against.

Then you are simply remiss in claiming that the object has a quality of shape that "pre-dates our discovery of it." The same contradiction is present. — Leontiskos

Here is the general outline of a position I hold which to me presents an intermediary view:

On one hand, the rock cannot hold a shape in the complete, or else absolute, absence of sentience—for no distance nor duration whatsoever can obtain in the absence two or more cooccurring (and interacting) sentient beings. This position—which I presume can be argued via a Kantian worldview—acknowledges the idealistic aspects of reality.

However:

Given the just mentioned cooccurrence (and interaction) of two or more distinct transcendental egos, there then will necessarily occur distance and duration which equally applies to all cooccurring transcendental egos in the cosmos that in any way interact or else hold the potential to interact—for, devoid of any such equally applicable reality, no interaction would be possible. This distance (i.e., space) and duration (i.e., time) which is thus equally applicable to all cooccurring transcendental egos in the cosmos will then necessitate some form of shape(s) within the cosmos which is not contingent on any one mind or any one set of minds but, instead, is strictly contingent on the totality of all cooccurring minds (this as per the first clause provided above). The shapes which occur in the cosmos and are equally applicable to all individual minds (e.g., an actual, physical rock as contrasted to some mind’s particular imagination of a rock) will then occur in manners wholly unbiased to any one mind in particular—for they are equally applicalbe to all minds in the cosmos—and will thereby be objective in at least this sense of the word: a complete impartiality of being or occurrence. This overall proposition then readily allows for empirical facts in the world to obtain; such as the empirical fact of a physical rock’s particular shape remaining constant regardless of the sentient beings which might happen to interact with it and of their particular faculties of (empirical) perception.

This objective reality as just outlined would then remain relatively constant (yet in flux rather than being perfectly static) where sentient beings to be perpetually birthed into the cosmos and to perpetually pass away (or else disappear) from it, this as can be observed to in fact happen. The rock’s shape predates us as individuals and as a particular cohort—yet nevertheless, in this roughly sketched model, remains fully contingent on the occurrence of all individualized transcendental egos that interact or hold the potential to interact in the cosmos (which as a physical, objective given, is a contemporaneous result of there being numerous transcendental egos that in some way directly or indirectly affect each other—this being a type of formal causation of the former by the latter.)

The point of this post is to illustrate that philosophical idealism and empirical facts can coherently coexist—i.e., that there is no necessary contradiction between them.

I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness.. — Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271

:up:

My approach to this is to stubbornly demand some actual meaning from physical theories. The 'silence of algorithm' (often math that just has no definite interpretation or only an absurd-counterintuitive interpretation) is finally brought down to earth and the lifeworld and genuine meaning through the [ understandable ] measurements it 'compresses' [ see algorithmic information theory ] and predicts. Then there's the associated technology, which we experience in the usual, familiar way.

As far as I can tell, some people experience the math involved as mystical hieroglyphics, like the streaming green source code in The Matrix. I think Tegmark is like this, but such thinking has left the empirical scientific spirit behind. It's bad metaphysics drunk on its close association with good physics.

I think you are agreeing with John Stuart Mill, that objects are permanent possibilities [and actualities, of course ] of sensation.

I'm not sure that I do or not. I would argue that the shape of objective things is unchanging despite the different faculties of experience which pertain to humans (with the variations in-between; e.g. color blindness), to dogs and cats, and to bacteria or ameba. In each example, the objective thing, say a rock, will be perceived differently, yet its shape will remain constant to all (although viewed, else experienced, from different perspectives). And this, again, within an idealistic system.

And this, again, within an idealistic system. — javra

How so, if you don't mind my asking ?

The object itself (better phrase for my money than the object-in-itself) and not some representation of it is known. Others may see the object itself from the other side of the room, and they will therefore see it differently, but they also see the object itself, not a representation.

I think we agree on:

Mediation is unnecessary here. Perspective is the better way to approach the varying of the object's givenness. The complicated machinery of vision is a often-mentioned red herring, in my view. The intended object is always out there in the world. 'I see the object' exists in Sellars' 'space of reasons.' — plaque flag

Yes, quite right. :up: And that it occurs is known most surely—more surely than any epistemological theory that might undercut it (hence my post <on the topic>). Of course you have also raised the additional point that indirect realism tends to presuppose direct realism.