"33. OF REAL THINGS AND IDEAS OR CHIMERAS.--The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called REAL THINGS; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed IDEAS, or IMAGES OF THINGS, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless IDEAS, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more (1)STRONG, (2)ORDERLY, and (3)COHERENT than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also (4)LESS DEPENDENT ON THE SPIRIT or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are IDEAS, and certainly no IDEA, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it. ~ Berkeley"
Not only does he distinguish between - let's call them - real appearances - and - "chimeras" - unreal appearances but he also allows the existence of something beyond or behind appearances. . — Ludwig V
I have a lot of trouble with the term "world". It gets used of the worlds of chess and football and physics, of the "lived world", of the different worlds that orbit the sun and who knows what else? There's nothing wrong with your interpretation of it. You are also right that in this context the interpretation involved is a bit mysterious, because it is not the result of a conscious process.I think you misunderstand, "the world" is as interpreted. Therefore the world of the happy person is a completely different world from from the world of the unhappy person, and a difference of interpretation is irrelevant because interpretation is already integral to "the world". That difference is therefore a difference in the world. This is due to the role of the subconscious in interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover
Plus, even when, later on, he deals with the interpretations we make of the world, he about "seeing as.." which suggests to me that he is still thinking of a single reality interpreted in different ways.The world is everything that is the case.
1.1The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
I think this needs to be put somewhat differently. For me, "the world has changed for that person" suggests that person is living in one world, which has changed. I would suggest something like "then that person has changed from one world to another. But perhaps that would perhaps raise questions about whether that person is the same person.If the happy person and the unhappy person are the very same person at a different time, then the worlds has changed for that person. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm no expert, but I do understand that you don't deal with psychosis by presenting evidence. Psychosis is not unique in this. It is also a mistake to think that religious beliefs can be dealt with by presenting evidence; it is not a matter of evidence, but of how one interprets the evidence. But if a non-psychotic person can treat a psychotic person, doesn't that suggest that, at some level, they are both living in the same world?Psychosis is not treated by getting the person to understand that what they experience is not the real world. — Metaphysician Undercover
Art can make people happy. Perhaps he just thinks that art is more appropriate to a philosophical context than the pleasures of walking the dog.The irony or strange aspect about this here is that Schopenhauer does not mention much these happy moments, choosing to speak about art, which is fine and important. — Manuel
I didn't mean to imply that the nuclear threat has disappeared. On the contrary, it may be more serious now than it was in the last century. It has just been superseded by the (possibly more serious) threat of climate change. My expectation is that it will be dealt with. But the process will be messy and only partially effective.One day the boy who cried wolf will be right. Hopefully not soon, but, sobriety ought to make us see we are not doing good as a species at all. It could change, absolutely. But it's yet to happen. — Manuel
Indirect access to reality is still access to reality. I suppose that introspection counts as direct access? But there, the distinction between reality and appearance collapses.It's still an important step removed from direct access. — Manuel
Yes. The fascination, for me, is tracking the distortions and errors that allow him to reach his conclusions. It's a long list. And yet, he somehow manages to put his finger on ideas that are not simply a recapitulation of the classical tradition and which we are still arguing about. I mean that (on my understanding), he is the originator of what we now know as the idealist tradition in philosophy; also, I don't know of earlier philosophy who explicitly argues for relativism about all our empirical knowledge of the world.I don't know enough about Berkley to know his influences (I read him pretty much blind), but this actually makes a lot of sense if one looks at his philosophy as essentially recapitulating the "classical metaphysical tradition"*, just through a sort of bizzarro world, fun house mirror setting of modernity.
IMHO though, it ends up looking terribly deflated. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Berkeley’s talk of occasion here reveals the immediate influence of Malebranche. Malebranche held that the only true cause is God and that apparent finite causes are only “occasional causes,” which is to say that they provide occasions for God to act on his general volitional policies. Occasional “causes” thus regularly precede their “effects” but are not truly responsible for producing them.
So it isn't at all clear how the translation would work in Dr. Johnson's case.Thus, within the domain of physical objects, Berkeley appears to think that God is the unique genuine cause, consistent with our characterization of occasionalism. There has been, however, some controversy in recent secondary literature as to whether one’s own body is to be included in this domain of physical objects. Some (such as McDonough 2008) have argued against this inclusion, while others (such as Lee 2012) have argued that we, as finite spirits, have no genuine causal input in the movement of our own bodies, and such movement is directly caused by God like any other physical object for Berkeley.
It is that Berkeley collapses the distinction between sensation, imagination, and intellectual abstraction (for example in this post by Feser). — Wayfarer
I think this needs to be put somewhat differently. For me, "the world has changed for that person" suggests that person is living in one world, which has changed. I would suggest something like "then that person has changed from one world to another. But perhaps that would perhaps raise questions about whether that person is the same person. — Ludwig V
I'm not quarrelling with the point that happiness and unhappiness affect how we see everything. So these moods are not simply conditioned by the way the world is. But it is complicated, because sometimes the way the world is can change our mood. I would suggest that it is a question of interaction with the world, not a one-way street. — Ludwig V
But if a non-psychotic person can treat a psychotic person, doesn't that suggest that, at some level, they are both living in the same world? — Ludwig V
My expectation is that it will be dealt with. But the process will be messy and only partially effective. — Ludwig V
Indirect access to reality is still access to reality. I suppose that introspection counts as direct access? But there, the distinction between reality and appearance collapses. — Ludwig V
I believe this is what Hume does as well, so it must have been a trend at that time. — Metaphysician Undercover
I would attribute this to his empiricist approach to philosophy, especially to the doctrine that all our knowledge comes from the senses. — Ludwig V
I don't know about Thomism in enough detail to respond to that alternative approach in detail, though I think I can see the sense in it. — Ludwig V
For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).
Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.
Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize.
Hume and Berkeley are both nominalists. Nominalism is one solution to the issue of universals. There are others. But I don't see how accepting one solution to the problem is evading it.Then all ideas, even complex ideas, become like a compilation of sense impressions. This effectively evades the issue of universals. — Metaphysician Undercover
If our world is the totality of our perceptions, given that the perceiver of a perception is not perceived in the perception, perhaps we need to say not the world is within us, but that we are our world. I could live with that.don't we have to conclude that the world is the perception, and the world is within the person, not vise versa? — Metaphysician Undercover
I understand my world to be everything that I interact with, together with myself. I interact with many different kinds of thing, some of which don't have a location in any normal sense. Perceptions are one example of this. So I'm not clear what the question is asking for.The issue is where do we position "the world", in this interaction. — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with that. But consider - if all you have to go on is appearances, how do you know when you have made a mistake?The reason for this separation (sc. of the phenomenal) is that mistakes inhere within the appearance, as mental illness demonstrates. If we do not allow for this separation then there is no way to account for the mistakes which the sense apparatus makes, in presenting its representation to the conscious mind. — Metaphysician Undercover
Some appearances are mistakes. Some appearances aren't mistakes. It would be a mistake to think otherwise. The question is how to tell one from the other.And since the mind only has the appearance to base its judgement on, it must allow for the logical possibility that the sense apparatus is completely mistaken, in an absolute way, as the skeptical starting point. — Metaphysician Undercover
My world is what I interact with. Your world is what you interact with. It follows that if I interact with you, you are a part of my world, and that if you interact with me, I am part of your world. I don't say those two worlds are identical. I do say that they overlap.By what principles do you reduce two distinct worlds interacting into one united world? — Metaphysician Undercover
Macbeth's delusional dagger is, in one sense, part of Macbeth's world. But since it does not exist, it is also not part of his world.Furthermore, it puts all those mistakes discussed above into some sort of limbo, where in one sense they have to be part of the world, but in another sense they have to be excluded from the world. — Metaphysician Undercover
I understand my world to be everything that I interact with, together with myself. I interact with many different kinds of thing, some of which don't have a location in any normal sense. Perceptions are one example of this. So I'm not clear what the question is asking for. — Ludwig V
But I don't see how accepting one solution to the problem is evading it. — Ludwig V
I agree with that. But consider - if all you have to go on is appearances, how do you know when you have made a mistake? — Ludwig V
Some appearances are mistakes. Some appearances aren't mistakes. It would be a mistake to think otherwise. The question is how to tell one from the other. — Ludwig V
My world is what I interact with. Your world is what you interact with. It follows that if I interact with you, you are a part of my world, and that if you interact with me, I am part of your world. I don't say those two worlds are identical. I do say that they overlap. — Ludwig V
….mistakes inhere within the appearance, as mental illness demonstrates….
— Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with that. But consider - if all you have to go on is appearances, how do you know when you have made a mistake? — Ludwig V
I agree that we know that there are things that we know that are not available to the direct access of introspection. If we know that, we have access to at least one fact about them - that they exist. If we know that we must have indirect acess to them.Introspection is limited, — Manuel
If we knew that there are some things that are not available to consciousness, they must be available to conciousness.It is a mistake in modern philosophy of mind to believe that everything (or almost everything) must be accessible to consciousness. — Manuel
How do we distinguish between mental reality and other kinds (such as physical or abstract reality) unless we have access to those other kinds?I do believe that we know some fundamental aspects about mental reality in merely having consciousness. — Manuel
It seems that we have a similar level of knowledge about those ideas. That helps.I'm no scholar of Thomism, but I've got a grasp of the basic outlines of what Edward Feser (who's a good source in these matters) calls 'Aristotelian-Thomist' (A-T) philosophy - Aristotle's matter-form philosophy. — Wayfarer
Put it this way. For me, perception requres understanding. Without that, one only has a "raw sensation" which is meaningless.For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses.
This is just behaviourism restricted, for some reason, to animals. But many people were quite happy to explain human beings in that way as well as animals. It is a way of thinking about them, not vulnerable to a simple refutation. (Compare religious belief).Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. — Maritain
If he has not the idea or concept, he does not know the thing. But since he responds appropriately to the thing, he has a concept of it. Not necessarily the same as yours and mine, but similar.He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows,
A couple of metaphors do not clarify anything.What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning.
I do agree that our discussion is messy. That's partly because the context is a bit messy. From my point of view there is more than one context. There's Berkeley and Schopenhauer, as well as Kant. The immediate spark, for me at least, was the idea that happiness and unhappiness affect how we experience or interpret the world, or the phenomena or appearances. My problem with the Kantian system is simply that the idea of the noumenon. I understand this as meaning a something-or-other that sits "behind" or "beyond" the phenomena" and which cannot be known. I'm not a fan.What are you guys calling “appearance”? — Mww
I don't think that we first recognize that something appears to us and we then make judgements about it, or rather, even to recognize that something has appeared is a judgement. Judgement is always included in every perception.Thing is….I’m sure both of you are fully aware mistakes in empirical cognitions inhere in judgement, not in appearances. And mental illness is not the rule, but the exception to it. — Mww
This is just behaviourism restricted, for some reason, to animals. But many people were quite happy to explain human beings in that way as well as animals. It is a way of thinking about them, not vulnerable to a simple refutation. (Compare religious belief).
But If "a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder;" how does it not see or smell the sugar or the intruder and know perfectly well what they are - what the appropriate reaction is?. I'm bewildered. — Ludwig V
If he (the dog) has not the idea or concept, he does not know the thing. But since he responds appropriately to the thing, he has a concept of it. Not necessarily the same as yours and mine, but similar. — Ludwig V
As Aristotelians and Thomists use the term, intellect is that faculty by which we grasp abstract concepts (like the concepts man and mortal), put them together into judgments (like the judgment that all men are mortal), and reason logically from one judgment to another (as when we reason from all men are mortal and Socrates is a man to the conclusion that Socrates is mortal). It is to be distinguished from imagination, the faculty by which we form mental images (such as a visual mental image of what your mother looks like, an auditory mental image of what your favorite song sounds like, a gustatory mental image of what pizza tastes like, and so forth); and from sensation, the faculty by which we perceive the goings on in the external material world and the internal world of the body (such as a visual experience of the computer in front of you, the auditory experience of the cars passing by on the street outside your window, the awareness you have of the position of your legs, etc.).
That intellectual activity -- thought in the strictest sense of the term -- is irreducible to sensation and imagination is a thesis that unites Platonists, Aristotelians, and rationalists of either the ancient Parmenidean sort or the modern Cartesian sort. The thesis is either explicitly or implicitly denied by modern empiricists and by ancients like Democritus...
The only way your dialogue works, is to correlate appearance with “looks like”, while Kantian phenomenal correlation is with respect to “presence of”. In order for your arguments to hold, therefore, re: mistakes are inherent in appearances, you have to allow the mere presence of a perceived thing a form of cognitive power, or, grant to appearance more content than the space and time Kantian doctrine permits. — Mww
Not to curtail your dialogue, but as stated it’s not consistent with the reference upon which it is, at least initially, premised. — Mww
Thing is….I’m sure both of you are fully aware mistakes in empirical cognitions inhere in judgement, not in appearances. And mental illness is not the rule, but the exception to it. — Mww
I don't think that we first recognize that something appears to us and we then make judgements about it…. — Ludwig V
I'm not a fan. — Ludwig V
I believe that since appearances are the creation of the living system….. — Metaphysician Undercover
That’s fine; I’m not going to argue with that. Myself, I prefer to think of appearance as something that happens to, rather than being a creation of, the living system. — Mww
The reluctance to acknowledge what I take to be a clear ontological distinction between homo sapiens and other species seems to stem from a broader philosophical commitment—one shaped by the widespread influence of Darwinian naturalism on our conception of human nature. — Wayfarer
I think you should put more energy into making a positive case for the ontological distinction you're introducing to other people, — goremand
You are right, of course. It's probably not a good idea to re-litigate all that here. Briefly, I don't know what the difference is between an ontological distinction and any other kind, so forgive me if I just talk about a distinction (or difference). It seems to me that there are differences between h. sapiens and other creatures and similarities. A big part of the issue is which of them matter, and that depends on the context. I object to emphasizing the difference and then thinking that animals do not experience pain in much the same way as we do. But it is easy to push the similarities too far and then applying inappropriate moral values to them. It's a question of balance and context and of attention to the details of each case. Dogs are a special case because of the relationships that they have which human, which are not unparalleled but are extreme on the spectrum of human/animal relationships.I distinctly recall holding the minority view in that thread, as I maintained that the Aristotelian distinction of h.sapiens as 'the rational animal' is a valid ontological distinction. In other words that h.sapiens and canids (etc) are beings of different kinds. I said that the ability to speak, count, create technology, pursue science, and the like, amounts to a difference in kind, not simply one of degree. — Wayfarer
Kant does not claim that we know things as they are in themselves (noumena), but he does assert that something external structures our experiences. — JuanZu
I don't think my view is obvious — Wayfarer
It never ceases to amaze me, the ease with which people seem to assume that 'we're just animals', when the difference between h. sapiens, and every other creature is so manifestly and entirely obvious. It's kind of a cultural blind spot, an inability to recognise the obvious. — Wayfarer
But it's actually very significant in metaphysical implications. — Metaphysician Undercover
In other words that h.sapiens and canids (etc) are beings of different kinds. I said that the ability to speak, count, create technology, pursue science, and the like, amounts to a difference in kind, not simply one of degree. — Wayfarer
While we should certainly recognize our biological continuity with the rest of nature, we should not let that recognition obscure the radical difference that defines our cognitive and cultural life. — Wayfarer
Perhaps. In Kantian metaphysics, though, the notion of appearance is merely intended to grant ontology in general, which serves to limit metaphysics to the conditions of a “logical science”, entirely internal to the human intellect. Which reduces to….whatever’s out there is whatever it is; all that remains is to expose how the human intellect of a specific dedicated form treats it. — Mww
I agree that we know that there are things that we know that are not available to the direct access of introspection. If we know that, we have access to at least one fact about them - that they exist. If we know that we must have indirect acess to them. — Ludwig V
If we knew that there are some things that are not available to consciousness, they must be available to conciousness. — Ludwig V
How do we distinguish between mental reality and other kinds (such as physical or abstract reality) unless we have access to those other kinds? — Ludwig V
So the problem I see, is that this assumes a sort of Cartesian separation between external and internal. — Metaphysician Undercover
So if the senses are causally affected by activity which is external, they must be completely "out there" themselves. — Metaphysician Undercover
But if the senses are creating the phenomenal appearances in the mind, they must be completely internal — Metaphysician Undercover
So the Kantian system is really inadequate to account for reality because it doesn't allow that the senses partake of both, the external and the internal. — Metaphysician Undercover
That's the problem with naming the noumenal as completely inaccessible to the human mind. — Metaphysician Undercover
In other words that h.sapiens and canids (etc) are beings of different kinds. I said that the ability to speak, count, create technology, pursue science, and the like, amounts to a difference in kind, not simply one of degree.
— Wayfarer
Can I ask, what defines this difference for you, that is the difference between a difference in kind and a difference of degree. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't know what the difference is between an ontological distinction and any other kind, so forgive me if I just talk about a distinction (or difference). It seems to me that there are differences between h. sapiens and other creatures and similarities. A big part of the issue is which of them matter, and that depends on the context. — Ludwig V
So - in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, the distinction between humans and animals is not merely one of degree—it is an ontological distinction. Animals are sentient, but their consciousness is bound to immediate experience. Humans, by contrast, possess rational intellect, allowing for abstract thought, self-reflection, and moral reasoning. This places humans in a separate category, traditionally referred to as animal rationale (rational animals) rather than merely sentient beings. — Wayfarer
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