Perhaps it is not logic but the very nature of the human brain itself that requires everything it encounters to conform to the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Just an extremely abstract form of anthropomorphism.

The basic question: Why is there something rather than nothing?

A relatively uncomplicated answer: Perhaps, because anyone who is able to ask and ponder this question is something. But who knows if, subsequent to anyone's death, there is nothing rather than something? Kind of like Schopenhauer trying to explain the Nothingness that results subsequent to a person's successful Denial of the Will to Live.

Perhaps, because we are not yet dead.

To me it is quite apropos that the Frenchman Sartre, having been thoroughly immersed in the French philosophical tradition, would begin by reflecting (no pun intended) upon the Cartesian Cogito and the nature of the Ego. However, it does not necessarily follow from this that Sartre simply adopted uncritically all of Descartes' epistemological assumptions. For example, the idea of a non-positional pre-reflective self-consciousness is no-where to be found in Descartes' written works.

And, for Sartre, the Cartesian I, Ego, or Self is not a substantial being, not a thing that thinks.

It seems to me, the central issue for Sartre is not so much the subject-object dichotomy (he himself separates all of Being into two kinds, viz., Being-for-Itself (consciousness) and Being-in-Itself (the non-conscious) as it is trying to unravel and elucidate the true nature of consciousness.

As per Sartre, the pre-reflective consciousness cannot grasp, intend, or posit itself as an object. If it tries to it falsifies itself. It is essentially a subject which can grasp itself as a subject, a self-consciousness, only when and while it is grasping, intending, or positing objects as objects.

Angelo, a very clear explanation of your skeptical position.

Your "target" in this regard happened to be Sartre, but I suspect that the ideas espoused by any other philosopher, past or present, would be vulnerable to your critique. Am I correct? Unless, of course, there is a philosopher, or a philosopher came on the scene, with new ideas that somehow respected and incorporated your cautions/limitations into their world view.

Angelo, I think Albert Camus provided an interesting twist to your observation about thinking when he wrote: "We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking."

Unlike Kant, Sartre is not concerned with determining the transcendental epistemological conditions that make experience possible. He is concerned, instead, with providing an accurate phenomenological description of consciousness, i.e., with providing a description of consciousness as it appears to us, as it is actually lived.

Like Descartes, Kant assumed that the "I think" must be able to accompany all human consciousness as a transcendental pre-condition of its existence; but, according to Sartre this was not the case.

Sartre described something called the non-reflective or pre-reflective consciousness which is a non-positional self-consciousness while simultaneously being a positional consciousness of the object.

Sartre's central contention is that from a phenomenological point-of-view neither Husserl's Phenomenological "I" nor Kant's "Transcendental I" is, to use Kantian terminology, a necessary and strictly universal condition for the possibility of the existence of the pre-reflective, non-positional self-consciousness.

The pre-reflective consciousness, or consciousness in the first degree, is essentially a non-positional self-consciousness, i.e., an immediate consciousness of the subject as a subject. From a phenomenological standpoint, there are no Kantian transcendental conditions required for the pre-reflective self-consciousness to exist or to occur.

The reflected consciousness, or consciousness in the second degree, (Descartes' Cogito) claims to be a positional consciousness of the self, when, in fact, it is a consciousness which falsely posits and misrepresents the subject, which is an absolute inwardness, as if it were an intended transcendent object (the "I" of psychology).

Reflected consciousness is best described as being an always futile, after-the-fact attempt to try to objectify that which is and remains throughout inherently subjective and completely elusive. The pre-reflective consciousness continuously and frustratingly slips out of sight whenever one tries to look at it or grasp it directly (objectify it) - like those stars that persistently disappear when one attempts to view them directly.

Situated at the Present on a timeline which is in constant flux, the pre-reflective consciousness, as Sartre stated, "is what it is not and is not what it is." And the reflective consciousness is powerless to transform the pre-reflective consciousness into an object, i.e., into an Ego that "is what it is."

Descartes' Cogito Sum (the "reflection") can happen any time I wish to perform it (its "certain" quality), but Sartre's non-positional self-consciousness does not depend on my performing it for it to exist.

When and while I am having a positional consciousness of (intending) a transcendent object (which I always do spontaneously), I am simultaneously having a spontaneous non-positional self-consciousness, but I am not "having" a Cogito Sum. The latter is not a spontaneous activity, but a deliberate performance. Thus, noticing the "certain quality" of the Cogito Sum in no way automatically nullifies Sartre's unique insight that the Cogito Sum is an immediate, but second order, reflection (performance) the existence of which depends on a more primordial, first order, non-positional self-consciousness.

This is the broader epistemological context in which Sartre places Descartes' Cogito Sum performance ("Ego Cogito, Ego Sum") and its purported "I."

1. You do not welcome my criticsm.

2. There is no performative contradiction in what I stated. I am not performing a Cogito Sum while simultaneously claiming, in the first person present tense mode, I do not exist. You are obviously trying to employ an unwarranted diversionary tactic, here, that simply does not work, to show your intellectual superiority.

3. I do have a better, more concise, view of what is the case than you do.

4. All we ever have is the conscious recognition of our ignorance, along with belief, and the scientific method.

Your last statement, " ... 'seeking the truth' is best made sense of as seeking the best possible 'view'
on the 'infinite object' of the world -- in terms of becoming the/an ideal viewer.", I find overflowing with impossibility and delusions of grandeur.

Who the hell would know what "the best possible view" of anything was, even if it existed or they encountered it?

And what does "becoming the/an ideal viewer" mean? Striving to have some kind of supreme, impossible, godlike perspective of the world?

Please clarify.

The problem is not semantical.

The "Cartesian move" as you call it can, in fact, be performed by any person who makes up the human family who wishes to perform it. And the truth of the Cogito Sum can be verified by any person who wishes to verify it in the first person present tense mode.

The welfare and progress of the human community is dependent upon the "I" of the creative genius, not the other way around. Thank goodness for autonomous personal creativity. May it always prosper.

All ideas that are truly original have never been created through community deliberations.

Also, history shows that out-of-control communities can be quite dangerous as totalitarian systems, since they seek to define who the persons must be.

Mww, your statement "I am me because it is impossible I am not, regardless of others" is a nice variation on Descartes' performative "Cogito Sum" insight.

In other words, while I am thinking in the first person present tense mode, it is existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating (impossible) for me to claim, simultaneously, that I do not exist. And the occurrence of this indubitably certain intuition does not at all depend upon my being aware that there are others who are not me.

[reply="Alkis Piskas;8276

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. Good luck with your inviolable dictionary definitions. The only thing obvious to me is your closed-minded dogmatic attitude.

For what it's worth, human thinking and human perceiving both presuppose human consciousness and are modes of human consciousness. When and while I am actively engaging in an act of thinking or an act of perception, in the first person present tense mode, I must be consciously aware of doing either while, simultaneously, also be consciously aware of the fact that I exist. To claim otherwise, in the first person present tense mode, would be existentially inconsistent and existentially self-defeating; i.e., impossible.

The main difference between thinking consciously and perceiving consciously is that the existence of the "object" thought consciously is indubitably certain (not subject to hyperbolic doubt), whereas the existence of the object perceived consciously is not indubitably certain (subject to hyperbolic doubt).

Perceiving, like imagining, remembering, speculating, inferring, etc., is a species of thinking.

Descartes: For any human mind, to think is to exist (cogito ergo sum).

In other words, when and while I am thinking, in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.

Berkeley: For any human mind, to be (to exist) is to perceive (esse est percipere).

In other words, when and while I am perceiving in the first person present tense mode, I must be existing.

In my opinion, Berkeley's esse est percipere (to be is to perceive) and Descartes' cogito sum (while thinking, I am) are saying precisely the same thing.

To this extent Berkeley and Descartes are in agreement.

They both claim, each in his own way, that the existence or being of a human mind depends upon its perceiving or thinking.

However, Berkeley takes a major step beyond Descartes.

Unlike Descartes, Berkeley also claims the "esse" of every object of human perception depends upon its "percipi," i.e., the existence of every object depends exclusively upon its being perceived by a human mind.

However, Descartes was unable to go as far as Berkeley did because he claimed that, with the single exception of personal existence, the existence of all objects of human thought could not be indubitably certain.

In other words, for Descartes the performance of the esse est percipi (the to be is to be perceived) is neither existentially consistent nor existentially self-verifying, when and while I am performing it in the first person present tense mode, i.e., it cannot overcome hyperbolic doubt and, thus, is not indubitably certain.

Only the performance of the Cogito Sum is existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying, i.e., indubitably certain, when and while I am performing it in the first person present tense mode.

How can Kastrup argue for "full-blown ontological idealism" without first proving the existence of "God, or Mind at Large"?

Does he anywhere attempt an ontological argument, or any other type of argument, for the existence of God, or Mind at Large?

Also, when you state that Kastrup argues "the universe is mind-dependent and the substance is 'mental,'" to what substance are you referring? I thought Berkeley convincingly argued that, upon detailed analysis, material substance and nothingness had identical meanings.

Guided by what you stated about him, Kastrup seems to me to be promoting a contemporary version of Spinoza's pantheism. Both thinkers claim that the world and God are one. Spinoza claims that mind and extension (that which comprises the world) are modes of expression and manifestation of an ultimate Substance. Kastrup seems to be saying much the same thing, however with the major stress being placed upon Substance as mind-at-large.

Thank you for your comprehensive answer to my question.

So then, I would conclude from what you and others responded that the positing of a perceiving Master Mind by Berkeley was necessary in order for him to avoid solipsism and to preserve the integrity and explanatory power of his epistemology. The will of the Master Mind also provides a rational foundation for the lawfulness we perceive in nature and for the ways in which the particular objects we perceive are organized, since the will of individual perceivers plays no part in determining either. A very sophisticated form of "proving" the existence of God or of simply postulating a "Deus ex Machina," I think. Yes???

By the way, how similar or different are Kastrup's ideas about Objective Idealism compared to those of Hegel's Objective Idealism?

Do you think that the entire world is mind-dependent, or just certain of its features?

From the frame of reference of human consciousness, the referent for both Noumenon and Thing-in-Itself is Nothingness. To intuit, perceive, or know either would require the ability to take a perspective outside of human consciousness, which is simply impossible. Also, any attempt to overtly, or covertly, use the principle of cause and effect, a category of the understanding, to answer this question contradicts itself.

Good for you!

As I said, best of luck!!!

Your first statement is a presumptuous non-sequitur.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

So be it.

Best of luck.

No, does not apply to animals.

Maybe my interpretation of his theory did not do it justice.

Many explanations and theories that fall outside the accepted paradigm(s) will, of course, "make no sense" upon first reading.

Why not read Sartre's original works before passing judgement.

An intriguing, rather unique answer to your figure/ground question can be found in Sartre's explanation of how human pre-reflective consciousness (also called Being-for-Itself) constantly and spontaneously uses the process of Nihilation, that is, actually uses Nothingness, to try to distance itself from itself and to distance itself from that which is not itself (Being-in-Itself), in order to make already existing objects emerge or stand out from their ground (Being-in-Itself). Again, there is no deliberation involved in this process, it is spontaneous and occurs constantly.

Take a read of Schopenhauer's Critique of the Kantian Philosophy to understand what I am trying to get at.
Yes, that's the chapter.

Yes, that is precisely the point.

In my opinion, Kant's epistemology never successfully demonstrated how the subsequent reality of any empirical entity could be generated by simply applying the transcendental forms of intuition and the transcendental categories of the understanding to a given manifold of sensation. Kant's chapter on the Schematism, which was supposed to demonstrate this, was and still is a dismal failure.


That is my reasoned view and, rest assured, there's nothing "instinctive" about it!

Any empirical entity I encounter is given to my perception as a complex of sensations that has already been completely organized according to a principle which always precedes and is unrelated to any subsequent, deliberate effort on my part to attempt to conceptually categorize or classify the entity.

Hypothetically speaking, a person encountering an empirical entity for the first time has no prior knowledge of what such an entity is, and this prior knowledge is not required to function as an indispensable condition for that person to be able to perceive the entity presenting itself, in the first place, as an organized complex of sensations - as a clearly delineated finished product, so to speak.

Only later, at a more sophisticated level, does theory development and predictive guidance come into play.

I don't understand how your comment relates to mine.

What does "things that are presented presuppose the necessity of their existence" mean? Are you claiming that human beings presuppose that all things (entities) that present themselves to them are the cause of their own existence (i.e., that they are necessary, rather than contingent things)?

So what? This has nothing to do with what I was writing about.

I guess Sartre was mis-speaking when he provided detailed descriptions of how both BEING-in-iself and BEING-for-itself present themselves to human beings.

Sartre's explanation of the pre-reflective cogito can be found in The Transcendence of the Ego and in Being and Nothingness.

Hint:
One can study the object as an object, or
One can study the subject as an object, or
One can study the subject as a subject.

Do humans encounter Being directly, or indirectly.? Does Being present itself directly to humans, or do humans have to re-present being?

For example, Brentano, Husserl and Sartre (intentionality, pre-reflective Cogito, and nihilation) on the one hand, versus Kant, Fichte, and Schopenhauer (transcendental idealism) on the other hand.

For me, this remains the perennially unresolved issue.

When you say that we "model" a world of empirical objects do you mean that we deliberately "create" a world of empirical objects out of the raw sense data by our brains synthesizing the raw sense data into particular empirical objects of our own choice?

Or do you mean that we are spontaneously guided by and follow empirical rules of sensory organization imbedded in, inherent in, the raw sense data when our brains synthesize the raw sense data into particular objects not of our own choice?

In my opinion, we do not have to have immediate recourse to transcendent things-in-themselves or noumena to explain sensory organization. They explain nothing.

We simply have to posit the possible existence of empirical rules of sensory organization embedded in the sense data which spontaneously guide our brains' synthesizing activities.

You misunderstood me.

I am focusing on our non-scientific a posteriori everyday experience of the "nature" of empirical objects.

Where in his works does Kant clearly and convincingly explain precisely how the "nature" of a given empirical object of everyday a posteriori experience can be generated by human sensibility and understanding simply applying space, time, and the categories to what he calls the given manifold of sensation? Kant needs more than just a given manifold of sensation.

The closest he came to trying to address this matter, I think, is in the section of the CPR concerning the Schematism which, in my opinion, is a complete failure.

When I ask "what" a spatio-temporal entity is that I am experiencing, its "what," its "nature" cannot be a thing-in-itself precisely because I am able to experience it.

However, the entity's what, its nature, that which makes the entity be what it is rather than something else, is itself not a spatio-temporal property of the entity. It is the entity's meaning.

The meaning of the perceived spatio-temporal entity, which is grasped intellectually, may be, for example, a neutron star, a supermassive black hole, a horse, a galaxy, a flower, etc.

Also, the meaning or nature of entities is itself empirical, not transcendental like space, time, and the categories, and can only be experienced, determined, and verified in an a posteriori fashion.

I submit that Kant's epistemological theory is incomplete precisely because he neglected to address this important matter and how it would fit into his theory.

I do not believe that, as you assert, "the doctrine extends to every property." Does the subject's spatial and temporal organization of an entity extend to and encompass every property of the entity? Can't "what" the entity is, its nature, its meaning, be considered a non-spatial and non-temporal autochthonous objective property of the entity? Plato seemed to think so and so did Edmund Husserl.

Yes, it would be a necessary pre-condition. And, yes, for Berkeley to be is to be perceived by a plethora of contingent, conscious frames-of-reference (minds) which, in turn, must be perceived by a necessary, all-encompassing, conscious frame-of-reference (MIND). It seems to me that Berkeley's ultimate "substance" is the latter; viz., the Ultimate Necessary Perceiver. A really unique argument for the existence of God, don't you think?

Berkeley argued, quite forthrightly and successfully I think, that SUBSTANCE functioning as a substratum for anything is equivalent to it being a superfluous NOTHING.

In other words, Berkeley's detailed analysis showed that SUBSTANCE and NOTHING have the same meaning.

So, claiming that SUBSTANCE is a permanent substratum that supports time is the same as claiming that NOTHING is a permanent substratum that supports time.

Which is saying NOTHING!

I have no objection to what you said. In fact, I agree with most of what you said. But I think you missed my point. To use your example, the Form/Idea Tree may be a necessary and universal exemplar with respect to all species of tree, but the Form/Idea Tree is not a necessary and universal condition with respect to any other experienced entities in the sense of being, not their ideal exemplar, but a transcendental condition for the possibility of their existence which originates in the understanding.

Also, what precludes one from proposing an exemplary Form/Idea for Pine Trees and another exemplary Form/Idea for Elm Trees, etc.? Can't one argue that an exemplary form exists for any experienced entities that share a common set of characteristics?

Plato's Ideas are both sensible and intellectual, yet they do not exhibit necessity and strict universality and, thus, are not transcendental conditions for the possibility of the entirety of human experience.

They necessarily apply to only some, but not to all the objects of human experience. For example, the Idea Elm Tree applies necessarily to only some trees, but not to all trees.

In fact, most of Plato's Ideas exhibit only a limited necessity and a restricted universality.

Since this OP originally concerned Kant, the principle I would reference to argue that there is a difference between object and subject is as follows:

Sensible and intellectual characteristics of the experienced object which exhibit necessity and strict universality have their originating source in the sensibility and understanding of the subject (they are transcendental and a priori in Kant's meaning of the term), while any sensible and intellectual characteristics of the experienced object which do not exhibit necessity and strict universality have their originating source in the object per se (they are empirical and a posteriori in Kant's meaning of the term).