• Wayfarer
    23.5k
    "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

    Thanks for producing those particular paragraphs, as it toucheth on something ( ;-) ) which a neo-thomist such as Edward Feser would say is radical shortcoming in the Bishop's philosophy.

    It is that Berkeley collapses the distinction between sensation, imagination, and intellectual abstraction (for example in this post by Feser). In Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, intellect plays a regulative role, actively grasping universal Forms rather than just passively receiving impressions. Without this distinction, Berkeley’s account of knowledge risks reducing all cognition to subjective perceptions, which an Aristotelian would find inadequate - his "ideas" seem to be more like what the Thomist would designate phantasms (mental images) rather than concepts grasped by intellect. As a result, his theory of knowledge risks reducing rational thought to subjective perception rather than a proper engagement with reality. So, a Thomist critic might say, 'Yes, reality depends on God, but not in the way Berkeley imagines. The world’s intelligibility does not arise because God perceives it—it arises because God has endowed it with form and finality, which reason can grasp independently of sensory perception.'

    @Count Timothy von Icarus, @Leontiskos
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    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
    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.

    But I did think that it was appropriate to take "world" in the context of the TLP as single and unique, because of the opening remarks:-
    The world is everything that is the case.
    1.1The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
    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.

    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 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.

    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.

    Psychosis is not treated by getting the person to understand that what they experience is not the real world.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?
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    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
    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.

    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
    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.

    It's still an important step removed from direct access.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.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    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
    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.

    There is one topic that you may not know about, but which, I think, is helpful in understanding Berkeley. Have a look at SEP - Occasionalism
    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.

    A side-note on Dr. Johnson. I doubt if Dr. Johnson thought he was making an argument against Berkeley. He must have intended his gesture as a counter-example. At one level, Berkeley undoubtedly has a reply. He needs to "translate" "Dr. Johnson kicked the stone" into a redescription in terms of ideas, in the same sort of way that he would translate an apple falling on the stone into ideas. So far, so good. But in this case, he has to deal with God's ideas and Dr. Johnson's ideas and their interaction. The SEP - Berkeley (3.2.6 Spirits and Causation) says:-
    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.
    So it isn't at all clear how the translation would work in Dr. Johnson's case.

    PS added later.
    I don't think this is a marginal issue. Tallis' article proposes a different conception - the mind as embodied and enactive. I'm very attracted to this approach and not just in relation to Berkeley. But he does not identify what failings in Berkekely's doctrines might make this approach more plausible. If I were constructing such an argument, it would be at this point that I would intervene.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k


    You are right that the quotation fails to distinguish between sensation, imagination and intellect. I would attribute this to his empiricist approach to philosophy, especially to the doctrine that all our knowledge comes from the senses; so it goes deeper than just Berkeley. I read him as based on Cartesian Dualism but adapting it, with the result that God is placed as the unseen reality moving the world rather than matter. His ideas about God, I understand, are derived from Malebranche's occasionalism. He doesn't seem to refer much to Thomist or Aristotelian doctrines, though he does re-introduce the concept of final causes, which had, of course, been abandoned by the new physics.

    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.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    It is that Berkeley collapses the distinction between sensation, imagination, and intellectual abstraction (for example in this post by Feser).Wayfarer

    I believe this is what Hume does as well, so it must have been a trend at that time. Hume seems to reduce ideas, to sense impressions as the fundamental base of an idea. Then all ideas, even complex ideas, become like a compilation of sense impressions. This effectively evades the issue of universals.

    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

    The issue here is the conclusion that the person is living "in" the world. Why do you conclude that the person is in the world rather than concluding that the world is in the person? The changes in "the world" which we were talking about are changes which are caused by the person changing from being happy to unhappy. The unhappy person perceives the world in a different way from when that same person was happy. If these are changes to "the world" for a person, don't we have to conclude that the world is the perception, and the world is within the person, not vise versa?

    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

    The issue is where do we position "the world", in this interaction. Like Kant shows, the world is better positioned as phenomenal, how things appear through sensation, rather than as the separate thing itself. The reason for this separation 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. 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. This necessitates, as a starting point, that "the world" refers to the appearance, not the independent thing itself.

    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

    I don't see how that conclusion would follow. We must allow that "world" is a defined term. Your example shows interaction between two people. Therefore we need a definition of "world" which implies that if two people interact they share a world. But by the principles above, my world is how things appear to me, and yours is how things appear to you, so interaction appears to be simply a matter of two worlds interacting. By what principles do you reduce two distinct worlds interacting into one united world? You can define "world" as that unity, for that very purpose, but that's a matter of begging the question. 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. Therefore that sort of begging the question, with a definition designed to evade the issue, only produces more problems.
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    My expectation is that it will be dealt with. But the process will be messy and only partially effective.Ludwig V

    I hope you are right, but I see reasons for skepticism.

    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

    Introspection is limited, we don't know how our ideas arise, nor do we know how thoughts connect to one another. It is a mistake in modern philosophy of mind to believe that everything (or almost everything) must be accessible to consciousness. It's not.

    But you do have a good point, in so far as we are going to speak of the "in itself", I do believe that we know some fundamental aspects about mental reality in merely having consciousness.

    It's not clear to me how much this says about anything else about the world at large.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    I believe this is what Hume does as well, so it must have been a trend at that time.Metaphysician Undercover

    Right! As Ludwig says

    I would attribute this to his empiricist approach to philosophy, especially to the doctrine that all our knowledge comes from the senses.Ludwig V

    That's the source of it.

    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

    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. I also read a little of Jacques Maritain, who was hugely influential in the Catholic left in the mid 20th c. and a profound philosopher. From whom The Cultural Impact of Empiricism:

    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.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    Then all ideas, even complex ideas, become like a compilation of sense impressions. This effectively evades the issue of universals.Metaphysician Undercover
    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.

    Postscript - afterthought
    don't we have to conclude that the world is the perception, and the world is within the person, not vise versa?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.

    The issue is where do we position "the world", in this interaction.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 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
    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?

    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
    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.

    By what principles do you reduce two distinct worlds interacting into one united world?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.

    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
    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.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    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

    The issue, is that we tend to extend "the world" beyond the limits of our interactions. That is what makes us want to say "I am in the world", in stead of "I am the world". The world is larger than me, so I am in some sense a part of the world, and that's what inclines me to say that I am "in" the word. The problem is that this extension of "the world", to include things beyond the limits of my interactions, requires principles, and the principles cannot be directly derived from the interactions, as they are principles of extrapolation.

    But I don't see how accepting one solution to the problem is evading it.Ludwig V

    Given what I said above, to deny the distinction between the world as directly perceived through sensation (one's interactions), and the extended world (the world which consists of more than one's interactions), would be to eliminate the need for principles derived from other than direct sense perception. Therefore it is an evasion of the issue.

    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

    This is a very good question, and it points to the reason why ontology, or metaphysics in general, is a very difficult subject of study. The question ought not be taken lightly, as many do. The issue can be represented by example as:
    "How do we know when empirical science is mistaken, if empirical science is consistent with sense observation?".

    The common approach is to evade the problem (explained above), deny that science utilizes principles of extrapolation which are derived from somewhere other than empirical observation, and insist that pure, well-principled science cannot be mistaken. Hume demonstrated this problem of extrapolation as the problem of induction. And when we recognize that such nonempirical principles must be applied, then we can broaden that category, of nonempirical knowledge to include the principles by which we interpret sensations. And then it becomes apparent that such principles are necessarily prior to any coherent sensation, as what makes sensations intelligible in the first place.

    So this is revealed as the fundamental, basic, or foundational mistake, the idea that knowledge follows from sensation, instead of the reality that sensation follows from knowledge. Then empirical knowledge is understood as an enhancement, or branch of a larger underlying body of knowledge. These are the levels of distinct potentiality described by Aristotle. Prior to being educated in science, a person has the potential to be educated in this way, and after being educated the person has developed to a new level, a different potential.

    To answer your question then, "to know when you have made a mistake", requires being educated in fields which are distinct from those fields which focus on analyzing sense appearances. The most inclusive (broad) field here is morality. In morality we learn about what we ought to do, and ought not do, and the basic precepts of what it means to make a mistake. This is the base level for "acquired knowledge".

    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

    The basic point to understand, which can be derived from what I called the "foundational mistake", is that all appearances have inherent within them, mistakes. This is the difference between how the thing is in itself, and how it appears to a person. To recognize, and enforce this differentiation, Aristotle imposed the law of identity. This law recognizes that the identity of a thing is within the thing itself, rather than what we say about the thing. This principle recognizes the separation between the thing and how the thing appears, and acknowledges mistakes within the appearance, through the difference between essences and accidents.

    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

    In this way, we have a multitude of worlds. We could produce a model, a representation in which we have up to an infinity of worlds overlapping, but that becomes extremely complex. However, it is intuitive to believe that there is one independent world, and all these worlds are really just part of one united world. Producing this model, or representation, requires that we adopt principles which are derived from somewhere other than our own personal interactions. We have an example of these principles, as the basic inherited knowledge, or potential, which we are born with, and then the basic moral knowledge which builds from this instinct, producing that conception of unity which is so intuitive to us. Hume dwelled on these differences, between distinct sensations or ideas, and the continuity of a united experience.
  • Mww
    5k
    ….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

    What are you guys calling “appearance”? The context of your dialogue obtains from Kant’s notion of intuition with respect to the world, in which appearance has nothing to do with mistakes, and, the world has nothing to do with appearances.

    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.

    Not to curtail your dialogue, but as stated it’s not consistent with the reference upon which it is, at least initially, premised.

    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.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    Introspection is limited,Manuel
    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.

    It is a mistake in modern philosophy of mind to believe that everything (or almost everything) must be accessible to consciousness.Manuel
    If we knew that there are some things that are not available to consciousness, they must be available to conciousness.

    I do believe that we know some fundamental aspects about mental reality in merely having 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?
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    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
    It seems that we have a similar level of knowledge about those ideas. That helps.

    For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses.
    Put it this way. For me, perception requres understanding. Without that, one only has a "raw sensation" which is meaningless.

    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
    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.

    He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows,
    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.

    What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning.
    A couple of metaphors do not clarify anything.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    What are you guys calling “appearance”?Mww
    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.

    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, or rather, even to recognize that something has appeared is a judgement. Judgement is always included in every perception.
    Yes, mental illness is not the norm. There are many different kinds of problem here. The common element is the issue of how one interprets the world and how that process is not an abstract issue of knowledge, but is conditioned by all sorts of other factors.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    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

    We discussed this at length on that thread on rationality in humans and animals. 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.

    Now as for whether that is a 'religious belief'. 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. In many ways, evolutionary biology has reinforced the view that we are fundamentally continuous with the rest of nature, which is something many cherish, both as an expression of scientific understanding and as a foundation for ecological and ethical values. And I do not in any way wish to diminish the importance of those values.

    However, I believe this perspective risks overlooking a real distinction that has profound existential implications. Our capacity for self-awareness, symbolic language, and complex tool-use sets us apart in ways that are not merely matters of degree but of kind. 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. I suspect that some resistance to acknowledging this distinction arises because evolutionary theory has, in some sense, come to function as a meta-narrative—a way of understanding our place in the cosmos that, in its broadest cultural expression, tends to downplay discontinuities in favor of an overarching unity by flattening such ontological distinctions. It is one of the consequences of the cultural impact of empiricism that Jacques Maritain (and, in a different way, George Berkeley, are criticizing.)

    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

    The point of Maritain's essay is precisely that a dog (or other non-rational sentient beings) lack the specifically human capacity to form concepts. 'The human intellect grasps' says Maritain, '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).' This is, of course, Aristotelian realism, and Maritain says he is an Aristotelian.

    The Edward Feser blog I posted puts it like this:

    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...

    I would say 'reason' rather than 'thought' but I think the point is clear. So, no, I don't think that dogs and cats entertain concepts, but I hold that on philosophical, not religious, grounds. And that this goes against the grain of modern culture, precisely because of the cultural impact of empiricism.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    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

    I don't strictly adhere to Kantian principles, so I left Kant on the last post or two. I grant to appearance, more content.

    Not to curtail your dialogue, but as stated it’s not consistent with the reference upon which it is, at least initially, premised.Mww

    I referred to Kant more as an example, than as a premise.

    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 believe that since appearances are the creation of the living system (sense apparatus, I think I said), there is nothing wrong with asserting that mistakes inhere within appearance. This is the position Plato took, the senses deceive us. And, good evidence of this is hallucinations and mental illness.
  • Mww
    5k
    I don't think that we first recognize that something appears to us and we then make judgements about it….Ludwig V

    If such were the case, though, you’d have a logically consistent answer regarding when a mistake is known to have been made.

    I'm not a fan.Ludwig V

    Don’t blame ya; I’m not either, but probably for different reasons.
    —————-

    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.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    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

    That's a simple difference of opinion. But it's actually very significant in metaphysical implications.
  • goremand
    114
    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

    Rather than fear of religion or the cultural hegemony of materialism, I think your biggest problem is that you think that your view is obvious. I think you should put more energy into making a positive case for the ontological distinction you're introducing to other people, rather than attacking perceived obstacles (darwinism, modernism, etc.) as if that alone were enough. After all, what is "clear" to you might be completely counterintuitive to others.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    I think you should put more energy into making a positive case for the ontological distinction you're introducing to other people,goremand

    Thanks. It is a theme I write a lot about. The post you're referring to is a follow up on a previous conversation in another thread on rational thinking in animals and humans. I don't think my view is obvious, I've done a lot of research, reading and thinking about it over a long period. I'm criticizing a view which is thought obvious by many.

    If you want me to try and explain the reasoning in more detail I'm more than happy although it is probably more relevant in that other thread.
  • JuanZu
    201


    When I think of a critique of empiricism I think of Kant. He criticized the idea of tabula rasa that persisted in empiricism. Hence his whole philosophy concerning the active position of the mind with respect to what we perceive.

    Kant even introduced the forms of sensibility (space and time) as transcendental forms that apply to external things.

    In the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), Kant introduces the "Refutation of Idealism", where he argues that the existence of the external world is not just probable but necessary for self-consciousness.

    Kant argues that the existence of external objects is a necessary condition for self-consciousness. His reasoning follows these steps:

    1. We are aware of our own existence in time. We experience a continuity of thoughts and changes in our mental states.
    2. To be aware of time, we need an objective reference point. Time is not something we perceive directly; we only understand it in relation to external events.
    3. These external events must be stable and distinct from our minds. If only internal perceptions existed, we would have no fixed framework for organizing our experiences in time.
    4. Therefore, the existence of an external world is necessary for self-consciousness.

    This argument is based on the idea that we cannot be aware of ourselves without an external reference frame. The external world is not just an optional assumption. it is a prerequisite for our experience of the self to make sense.

    Kant does not claim that we know things as they are in themselves (noumena), but he does assert that something external structures our experiences.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    :100: Totally with you on all that. Thanks for summarising his Refutation of Idealism.
  • Ludwig V
    1.8k
    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
    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.

    On the business about intellect, imagination, and sensation, to treat these as entirely distinct abilities, each functioning in its own box may seem clear, but distorts the complexity of our cognitive capacity and grossly neglects the importance of our not merely existing but acting in the world. This is a very large subject. It would be better, perhaps to take it to another thread.

    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 can follow the line of thought until this point. But this is where, for me, it falls apart.
  • goremand
    114
    I don't think my view is obviousWayfarer

    I'm really surprised to hear you say that, I've seen you explicitly invoke obviousness several times to defend your views. Here is a very clear example:

    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

    Although, you wrote it a long time ago. Maybe you've since changed your mind?
  • Mww
    5k
    But it's actually very significant in metaphysical implications.Metaphysician Undercover

    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.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.4k
    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. I would say, for example, that a difference in kind constitutes a complete break with no possibility of continuity between the two, where as a difference of degree implies a continuity. To exemplify, I would say that the differences between the perceptions of the different senses can be differences of kind, so that the object of sight, and the object of hearing are different kinds, while differences within one sense, like the difference between blue and red, are differences of degree. The latter implying a continuity between the two, the former a discontinuity.

    My opinion is that we have to be very cautious in our judgements concerning this subject because sometimes a very large jump of degree appears like a difference of kind. So for example, nonvisual electromagnetic activity appears to be a difference of kind, because it is not visible, but it has really been shown to be a difference of degree. Conversely, assuming that differences of kind can be reduced to differences of degree produces faulty conceptions like the philosopher's stone, and prime matter. So we approach the ancient question of how many different ontological kinds are there.

    I think we can see, that living beings have developed (through evolution?) capacities of different kinds. For instance, hearing detects vibrations of molecules, while taste and smell (both perhaps of the same kind) detect changes to the molecules themselves, physical or chemical interactions with the senses. We could say that these are different kinds of activities being detected. And all of this presents us with a bit of a philosophical puzzle in itself, how does a capacity of a different kind come into existence in evolving life forms.

    So if we judge that intellection, the capacity to reason with abstract conceptions, is a difference of kind, I think we need to justify this judgement. Now we might refer to "the object" of this capacity, like I referred to the difference between the object of sight and the object of hearing, as what the capacity is working with. I can think of a number of possibilities. We might say abstract concepts are the object of intellection, but this is problematic because they do not really qualify as "objects" by the law of identity. Then we have signs or symbols, as the possible object, but this is equally problematic because signs get reduced to anything which carries meaning, so that all sorts of creatures can be seen to observe the meaning of signs. Another possibility is "object" in the sense of a goal, intention or final cause. Is it the case that recognizing goals, as final cause, and the whole structure of moral philosophy which developed from this, is what constitutes the object of intellection? This would be what Plato called "the good". But again, the question is can we have such an object, which satisfies the requirement of the law of identity, and if not, the whole presumed activity is invalidated as fictional. This is the issue of objective morality.

    To summarize the issue, to judge the power of intellection which human beings have, as a capacity which constitutes a difference of kind, from the other capacities which other creatures have, rather than a difference of degree, requires justification. Justification requires that we describe what that capacity does, in its actuality, and this means that we look at the movements of its objects. Before we describe the movement of the objects, we need to identify those objects, because falsely identifying objects will result in a false description, and a faulty justification.

    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

    The problem, is that claiming there is a radical difference, and that we need to recognize this difference as a radical difference, because it has serious ontological implications, does not itself, really qualify as "recognizing the difference". It is a matter of asserting a difference without actually recognizing it. Without the capacity to describe, or somehow demonstrate that difference, it's just a blind assertion. And madmen can make many such blind assertions about many crazy things, but unless they demonstrate something, we just dismiss them as crazy. Further, as Berkeley has exemplified to us, if what you demonstrate is contrary to what people already believe, the demonstration must be carried out on their terms, and that makes it even more difficult to demonstrate what you assert.

    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

    So the problem I see, is that this assumes a sort of Cartesian separation between external and internal. But, if we are to accept this separation as real, we need to determine a boundary, and this is where the problem lies. If we assume a purely internal, "within the mind", and a purely external "out there", and this is what the Kantian distinction forces on us by making the "out there" completely separate, then we have to account for the reality of the sense organs as somewhere in between.

    This is very problematic, because the boundary by Kant's description must be a complete separation, allowing nothing from "out there" to be internal. So if the senses are causally affected by activity which is external, they must be completely "out there" themselves. But if the senses are creating the phenomenal appearances in the mind, they must be completely internal. 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. And the Kantian system is caught by the "interaction problem". That's the problem with naming the noumenal as completely inaccessible to the human mind.
  • Manuel
    4.2k
    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 discover them. If not, trivially, they remain in the dark.

    If we knew that there are some things that are not available to consciousness, they must be available to conciousness.Ludwig V

    That's almost a panpsychist claim, that everything is experience-realizing or experience-involving. That's not clear. We know that animals have sensations we cannot experience, like dogs will smell or squid with vision, etc.

    You could say that since we know about it, it also involves our consciousness. But that's not the same as us experiencing it, which I take to be the important part of having consciousness.

    Lastly, unless we are an evolutionary miracle such that we so happened to evolve to experience everything and know everything, it logically follows, that there are things we cannot understand or even experience, it is beyond our capacity to "latch on to", as it were.

    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

    Mental reality refers to those things that appear to our minds which need not have a corresponding object of which the mind is referring to.

    Physical reality refers to those things that exist absent us, but which we can experience as well.

    Mathematical reality is about taking mathematics to be existing entities or things which exist somehow.

    And on and on. This is a matter of emphasis; these are not metaphysical distinctions.
  • Mww
    5k
    First off….nothing following is meant to change your favored philosophy. You know yours as well as I know mine, and we can forgive each other for our separate ways. That being said, here’s some stuff I think might alter your view.

    So the problem I see, is that this assumes a sort of Cartesian separation between external and internal.Metaphysician Undercover

    You called it a “Kantian distinction”, which I think much more the case than separation. It is inescapable that the human sensory apparatuses are affected by things appearing to them, which tends to negate the premise the senses and that which is sensed are separated on all accounts.

    In addition, it is equally inescapable, hence trivially obvious, that the real physical things out there are not the representational things of experience.

    So, yes, a decidedly refined sort of Cartesian dualism.
    ————-

    So if the senses are causally affected by activity which is external, they must be completely "out there" themselves.Metaphysician Undercover

    I hesitate to admit the senses are causally affected, but rather think they are functionally affected, in accordance with the natural physiology, which makes explicit they are “out there” themselves, in relation to the cognitive system itself. That is to say, the sensory devices are just as much real objects as are basketballs and snowflakes.

    But if the senses are creating the phenomenal appearances in the mind, they must be completely internalMetaphysician Undercover

    Ahhhh, but they do not; the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation, again, in accordance with respective physiology. Not hard to understand the senses as merely a bridge between the real and the representation of the real. Phenomena belong to intuition, which is a whole ‘nuther deal than appearance/sensation, which might…..very loosely….be deemed the source of the internal images of the external things.

    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

    As stated above, the account does allow the senses to, maybe not partake in so much as distinguish between, the external and the internal.
    —————-

    That's the problem with naming the noumenal as completely inaccessible to the human mind.Metaphysician Undercover

    It cannot be completely inaccessible. If noumena were inaccessible to the mind there could be no conception of it. Which highlights a misconception: Kant’s is a system in which different faculties function in unison. Mind may be understood as the composite of those faculties, but it remains that each faculty does its own job, and when examining the system, to overlay all onto mind misses the entire point of the examination.

    Noumena are inaccessible to some faculties but not others, so it cannot be said, or said accurately, they are inaccessible to the mind. Technically, noumena are accessible to the understanding alone, insofar as the understanding is the faculty of conceptions, and a conception is all a noumenon could ever be.

    Be advised: you lose absolutely nothing by neglecting noumena entirely when examining human knowledge. The only reason Kant brought it up was to plug an ever-so-abstract logical hole.
    (Actually, some secondary literature accuses him of backing himself into a corner, from which his extrication demanded a re-invention of classic terminology, which in turn seemed to demand an apparently outlandish exposition, which really isn’t at all.)

    Anyway….ever onward.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    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

    As I've introduced this idea of there being an ontological difference or discontinuity between humans and other animals I will attempt to justify and describe it.

    But bear in mind, the origin of the discussion in this particular thread, was in respect of Berkeley's philosophy, and, in particular, his empiricism, and his insistence, with the other empiricist philosophers, that sensory experience is the sole source of knowledge.

    As noted in 's response, this contention was criticized by Kant, in an effort to differentiate his 'transcendental idealism' from what he described as Berkeley's 'dogmatic idealism', and also in a more general sense because of Kant's insistence of the fundamental role of the a priori in the understanding. That is an element lacking in Berkeley's philosophy (and indeed in all of the empiricist philosophers).

    I introduced what I understand of the Aristotelian-Thomist (A-T) criticism of Berkeley's empiricism, as described by Edward Feser in several online posts. At issue in that criticism is the claim that reason makes use of another faculty, apart from sensation and imagination, and it is this faculty which distinguishes the human intellect. As Jacques Maritain, another A-T philosopher, put it, what distinguishes the human from animal minds, is the ability to grasp universals - the universal 'man' for example. He contrasts that with the intelligence of the dog (and this can be said with all due respect to the status of dogs as companion animals, for whom I have great affection). A dog doesn't form a concept of a class or kind but 'reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions [from] his eyes or his nose'. Feser adds to this, the idea that universals are the fundamental constituents of rational judgement (I will mention again his post Think, McFly, Think, for a more detailed description.)

    Getting back to the 'ontological distinction'. Ontology means 'kinds of being'. For instance, in information technology, the ontology of a network would comprise a description of the different kinds of components that it comprises (e.g. servers, printers, routers, pc's etc. Not the inventory, but the kinds of devices - inventory would be separate.) In philosophy, 'ontology' has rather fallen out of favour (as has 'metaphysics'), partially because it's a rather archaic term, but also because it relies on making the kinds of distinctions that sit uncomfortably with naturalism, which tends not to categorise this way.

    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. It is also the source of what is loosely described by 'the human condition'. I am critical of the way that neo-darwinism, on the popular level, erases this distinction, although that is tangential to this thread. My only purpose in bringing in A-T was to highlight their criticism of Berkeley, which I believe has merit, even though in many other respects, I am prepared to defend Berkeley's idealist philosophy.

  • goremand
    114
    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

    I think the problem with this argument has been pointed out to you before: I could make the same case for the pistol shrimp and say that it is an ontologically distinct species because it has the unique faculty of shooting shockwaves out of it's claws. It's easy to prove that humans are different, but you have yet to prove that this is "a difference that makes a difference" as I believe you like to say.
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