• Brian
    88
    Tonight I have been reading some F.H. Bradley and thinking about the concept of the reality of the world.

    I'm trying to get clear on my thoughts about this.

    The question I am raising comes down to this: The world we inhabit is the world of our experience. This is what people usually mean by "the world." But metaphysicians are always seeking a world behind the world; a reality behind the appearance.

    I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

    I do not deny the existence of a world-in-itself. Surely, trees, dogs, rivers, mountains, planets, solar systems and stars would exist regardless of whether humans were here to experience them.

    What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced. The world-in-itself exists, but it is not "like" anything. It just is.

    And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.

    I take this view to be an essential tenet of traditional phenomenology. The goal of phenomenology is to describe the only world that can ever be experienced, the world-for-us. The world-in-itself, like the Kantian thing-in-itself exists - there would still be entities if there were nobody to experience them. But they wouldn't be like anything in particular, because because like something requires experience of those things. They would just be there, exist, as pure being. And there's nothing else to know about such a world physically, other than that it is coherent and exists.

    The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.

    I believe pragmatism and existentialism deal with this in a very distinctive and logical way. The world-in-itself exists - it just shouldn't make the guest list for the big philosophical party, because it's a basicalaly useless cognitive placeholder for us.

    Thoughts on these themes?
  • Michael
    15.6k
    What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced.Brian

    I don't see how that follows. Maybe it's philosophically relevant even if it cannot be experienced?
  • geospiza
    113
    Overall I thought what you wrote was quite persuasive. I suppose my difficulty with it can be summed up in the cliche that "no man is an island". The view you present is quite insular. By interacting with the world-in-itself (which includes, by the way, other people) we are able to modify the world-for-us in significant ways.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

    It is not that we don't experience the world as it is in itself, we do, the problem is that we can't know or comprehend what it means for something to be as it is in itself because what we know is always and only presented by our self to our self, the world is always "the-world-for-us".
  • Galuchat
    809
    I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself. — Brian

    Does the world-for-us (i.e., things that human beings can experience) include those things detected and measured through the use of sense-enhancing instruments (such as particle accelerators), or are those things part of the world-in-itself?
  • TimeLine
    2.7k
    And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.Brian

    The search for the nature and origin of the universe is a comparative to the very same search for meaning within ourselves, a survey of the source of why we are by examining themes such as the singularity that touches on naturalism and God-centred views of Being and Nature. Ultimately, all we are doing is epistemically exploring our subjective place within something greater than ourselves, our finite condition that removes us by reflectively practicing objective thought. Whether these mental states themselves are real, mind-independent properties that exist is something metaphysics has yet to answer and in the end, solipsism does have a sense of validity.

    If there would be entities where nobody experienced them, they are nothing but objects and their condition is inherently valueless. Are you an object or is their value in your existence?
  • Cavacava
    2.4k
    Does the world-for-us (i.e., things that human beings can experience) include those things detected and measured through the use of sense-enhancing instruments (such as particle accelerators), or are those things part of the world-in-itself?

    We detect and we measure, what ever is known is only known though thought. Does the structure of thought equal... is it the same as the structure of the world and if so then how could we ever make that determination without circularity.
  • Galuchat
    809
    ...what ever is known is only known th[r]ough thought. — Cavacava

    What is there to think about without the ability to sense one's environment (sensation) and physiology (interoception)?
  • Galuchat
    809
    I agree. So whatever is known is known not only through thought, but only through experience (the product of sensation, interoception, and thought).
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    That does not get you past the circularity, because it is only in thought that your distinction between thought and sense is be possible and there is no guarantee that what we sense is what there is in itself are the same. We simply cannot not have an pure objective point of view.

    There is some question as to whether or not what is in itself can even be thought, let alone known.
  • Galuchat
    809
    I agree. What the OP doesn't make clear is why the study of quantum mechanics is meaningless if it is part of the world-for-us.

    And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it. — Brian
  • Brian
    88
    I don't see how, but I'd like you to elaborate on your point if you don't mind.
  • Brian
    88
    To me those would all be included in the world-for-us. We don't directly experience them via our senses but we do experience their effects on us and the world of our experience. In fact, they constitute the very world of our experience.
  • Brian
    88
    For kant, things-in-themselves were independent of the wold of space and time, since space and time are mere a priori conditions of our experienced world contributed to experience by our mental faculties.

    If we take this a paradigmatic case of the things-in-themselves, I wholly reject the notion. Is it possible that things exist external to space-time? Sure, as Nietzsche wrote, we can't definitely prove it. But such entities, whatever they are, or such ways of knowing entities, seem largely irrelevant to human experience to philosophical endeavor.

    After the, the most we could ever say about them is that they might exist. That doesn't really add too much to the philosophical conversation IMO.
  • Wayfarer
    22.6k
    The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.Brian

    That seems very close to 'objectivism', associated with Ayn Rand.

    I think a seminal text in the history of philosophy, concerning the distinction between reality and appearance, is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. I won't try and represent it here as I will presume you're familiar with it. But the point it makes is that what the ordinary person, the hoi polloi, takes to be real, are really 'shadows on the cave wall'. Because they know nothing higher and see nothing better, these denizens of the cave don't aspire to seeing the true light of the sun and the world outside their cave.

    I think it is obviously a metaphor for spiritual illumination; but note that it is not simply an abstract exercise or philosophical speculation. It has a moral dimension, namely that the philosopher, the one who has ascended from the cave, realises a truth about the human condition that those in the cave cannot.

    Thomas Nagel says, in his Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament, that

    Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly.

    And I think it is the same motivation which underlies Kant, Bradley, and indeed all idealist philosophies which ultimately find their inspiration in Plato, because

    It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being.

    SEP entry on Schopenhauer.

    The point of which is that the intention of the idealist philosophies was indeed to apprehend a reality that was of a higher nature, as it were, than the reality of the world of the senses. Of course such an attitude can and has been criticized on many grounds, but I think it's useful to recall what I see as its originating motivation.
  • Wayfarer
    22.6k
    Incidentally, the original impulse behind Kant's ding an sich was simply that we can only know things as they appear to us, not as they are in themselves. But this doesn't imply that 'things as they are in themselves' are spooky metaphysical entities. It is simply a statement that our knowledge of things is inextricably mediated by our sensory apparatus and intellectual faculties, so we see things 'as they appear' rather than as they are in themselves. It's quite a modest claim, in my view.
  • Galuchat
    809
    To me those [the study of cosmology and quantum mechanics] would all be included in the world-for-us. We don't directly experience them via our senses but we do experience their effects on us and the world of our experience. In fact, they constitute the very world of our experience. — Brian

    What is the difference between direct experience and indirect experience? Is reading the results of a particle accelerator experiment on a computer monitor an example of direct or indirect experience?
  • Janus
    16.4k
    The in itself is infinite and our knowing is finite. All knowing is knowing for a knower. We are finite knowers who possess a sense of the infinite, a sense of the in itself. We know the in itself as the for us. Beyond that there can be no in itself to be known, unless there be an infinite knower.
  • TimeLine
    2.7k
    For kant, things-in-themselves were independent of the wold of space and time, since space and time are mere a priori conditions of our experienced world contributed to experience by our mental faculties.Brian

    We categorise and conceptually distinguish through sensory experience within space and time where our mental state' relationship with the external world grounds our understanding. The objects within them are merely appearances that make it 'something' through the representations that we create and thus the actuality of what they are can never really be known. That is, the existence of these objects outside of our thoughts has no clear grounding and we create such meaning. His ethics becomes parallel to existential thought (particularly free-will), namely that by abandoning a naive subjectivism through objective moral rules, we are capable of universalising ethical values through reason rather than experience.

    Our capacity is not merely constrained by such limitations of the abovementioned cognitive processes, but that we can transcend toward rational consistency of your reality, that you are what you do. There is an infinite totality in your existence that consists of continuously bringing yourself into being - consciousness - rather than being a passive, inert observer.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    What is this "sense of the infinite" ... a desire for immanence, intimacy with what is in-it- itself, intimacy that thought necessarily lacks, leading to alienation. Does this "sense of the infinite" express our need for the absolute, the universal, the "infinite knower" [whom we create in our own image and likeness] as a form of explanation.

    Meno asked Socrates

    Meno. And how will you inquire, Socrates, into that which you do not know? What will you put forth as the subject of inquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?
  • TimeLine
    2.7k
    I believe John may perhaps be attempting to explicate the idea that only the infinite knower can possess knowledge of the infinite. I am unsure, however, how objects are infinite unless he was highlighting the platonic realm of forms, as Russell said:

    if the word ‘cat’ means anything, it means something which is not this or that cat, but some kind of universal cattiness. This is not born when a particular cat is born, and does not die when it dies. In fact it has no position in space or time, it is ‘eternal’.

    A universal quality that renders its own existence and this is reflected through nature.
  • Reformed Nihilist
    279
    What does "the world as experienced" mean, if not making a distinction between the experience and that which is being experienced (The world )? The phrase implies a world separate of our experience.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    Hi, thanks for your comment, I am sure John will get around to saying what he means. Meanwhile, I think that the universe is finite, and that everything in it is finite, except for our imagination, the fact that we can imagine possibilities far beyond any possibility of actuality, and that this why math, aesthetics, and perhaps ethics are so useful. Even out imagination has its limits we cannot imagine self contradictory thoughts like a square circles in Euclidean geometry.

    As we have discussed in the past, I have a problem posting any ontological objective point of view, because I think any such point of view is only available though thought. Russell's cat is only eternal in thought, but I don't think anyone can imagine what it means to have the view point of a thing in-itself. Kant said we can't know the in-itself but he also thought the concept could be used in thought. Others take a much stronger stance and insist that if it can't be known in principle then trying to use this concept in thinking is meaningless.
  • Janus
    16.4k
    What is this "sense of the infinite" ... a desire for immanence, intimacy with what is in-it- itself, intimacy that thought necessarily lacks, leading to alienation. Does this "sense of the infinite" express our need for the absolute, the universal, the "infinite knower" [whom we create in our own image and likeness] as a form of explanation.Cavacava

    I'm not sure if these are questions or statements Cavacava. Are you saying that thought leads to alienation?

    I think the sense of the infinite is an experience which is interpreted in various ways; and it has been interpreted as a form of explanation, but I don't believe that is its only, or even primary, dimension. Do we create the 'infinite knower" in our image or does it create us in its image? That is the question! Don't be too hasty to answer it I would say.

    The main point I wanted to make was that without an infinite knower the in itself cannot be like anything other than or beyond what it is like for us, or for other finite knowers. Finite knowers do not exhaustively constitute what is known; to be is not necessarily to be known. An infinite knower would exhaustively constitute what it knows, for it to be is to be known, what is known by it is brought into being by its very knowing.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    Tonight I have been reading some F.H. Bradley and thinking about the concept of the reality of the world.

    I'm trying to get clear on my thoughts about this.

    The question I am raising comes down to this: The world we inhabit is the world of our experience. This is what people usually mean by "the world." But metaphysicians are always seeking a world behind the world; a reality behind the appearance.

    I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

    I do not deny the existence of a world-in-itself. Surely, trees, dogs, rivers, mountains, planets, solar systems and stars would exist regardless of whether humans were here to experience them.

    What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced. The world-in-itself exists, but it is not "like" anything. It just is.

    And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.

    I take this view to be an essential tenet of traditional phenomenology. The goal of phenomenology is to describe the only world that can ever be experienced, the world-for-us. The world-in-itself, like the Kantian thing-in-itself exists - there would still be entities if there were nobody to experience them. But they wouldn't be like anything in particular, because because like something requires experience of those things. They would just be there, exist, as pure being. And there's nothing else to know about such a world physically, other than that it is coherent and exists.

    The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.

    I believe pragmatism and existentialism deal with this in a very distinctive and logical way. The world-in-itself exists - it just shouldn't make the guest list for the big philosophical party, because it's a basicalaly useless cognitive placeholder for us.

    Thoughts on these themes?
    Brian




    It reminds me of the manifest image vs. scientific image question.
  • TimeLine
    2.7k
    Russell's cat is only eternal in thought, but I don't think anyone can imagine what it means to have the view point of a thing in-itself. Kant said we can't know the in-itself but he also thought the concept could be used in thought.Cavacava

    It is epistemic, the boundary of language that enables us to articulate our mental state within a world external to that state; we are required to universalise concepts like 'cattiness' and form preliminary ideals to counter this boundary and where all objects - namely cats - become one with the nature of cattiness, but never completely. Just as we cannot understand the concept of God and yet his omnipotence is clearly understood, we as humans become one - albeit imperfectly - with the nature of God, but never completely. As cats need certain requisites to become one with cattiness, these ideals enable us to ascertain the temperament, disposition and other duties familiar to the concept of God - the highest Form of Good - that we seek to attain, striving to perfect virtue that can reach beyond the learnings of social history and materialism. The process is indeed real and that would mean that God and cattiness is also real.
  • mcdoodle
    1.1k
    The world we inhabit is the world of our experience.Brian

    Our experience includes our *imaginative* experience. I can imagine the infinite and infinitesimal, worlds in ten or eleven dimension, a divinity made flesh then resurrected after death (I don't personally believe in that but I accept that many others imagine it so), artificial worlds of numbers, every fiction ever written, the scientific image.

    I believe that I can, in these imaginings, imagine the point of view of all sorts of other points than the ones inside me, indeed I imagine inhabiting them.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    Me
    What is this "sense of the infinite" ... a desire for immanence, intimacy with what is in-it- itself, intimacy that thought necessarily lacks, leading to alienation.

    John:
    I'm not sure if these are questions or statements Cavacava. Are you saying that thought leads to alienation?

    They were rhetorical, but I think you answered the question about alienation as follows:

    John:
    The main point I wanted to make was that without an infinite knower the in itself cannot be like anything other than or beyond what it is like for us, or for other finite knowers.

    I don't accept any "infinite knower". So based on your thought, what I experience phenomenally forecloses on any reality behind the phenomenal as being the basis of my experience. I am in this sense alienated from any reality beyond the phenomenal, which I can only experience reality as mediated through thought.

    Phenomenology becomes a kind of dogmatic idealism?
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    I agree to the extent that universals are required by us to know anything, but that does not make them any more than heuristic devices which enable explanations.

    Just as we cannot understand the concept of God and yet his omnipotence is clearly understood, we as humans become one - albeit imperfectly - with the nature of God, but never completely. As cats need certain requisites to become one with cattiness, these ideals enable us to ascertain the temperament, disposition and other duties familiar to the concept of God - the highest Form of Good - that we seek to attain, striving to perfect virtue that can reach beyond the learnings of social history and materialism. The process is indeed real and that would mean that God and cattiness is also real.

    The problem I have with your statement is that it assumes that our heuristics devices are real, and not tools of thought that we make use of in the project we call life. I think the contraries you posit are ideal and not real.
  • TimeLine
    2.7k
    They certainly are ideals, but this draws back to the epistemic conditions of why we have them in the first place. "Cattiness" is real insofar as we presuppose its existence outside of our ideals. We cannot know that God exists, but the ideal enables us the noumenal experience of God and thus valid as a mind-independent reality, though inevitably doomed to the limitations of the contents of representations. Striving towards this ideal is a real experience.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.