I wouldn’t go so far as to say Hume’s is a contradiction, but moreso an incomplete philosophy. He just didn’t think deep enough into the abstractions prevalent in human intelligence, granting only “quantity and number”, thus relying pretty much exclusively on empirical cause/effect.

E.C.H.U., 12, 3, 132, 1748, says it all, methinks.

I never said otherwise! — Wayfarer

So manifestly tiresome, I should think, to be put in a defensive position, the accusatory ground for which having been seriously misunderstood. Or perfectly understood but miserably disavowed.

Given that Kant has already been invoked, as he usually is, it is permissible to further posit the “transcendental illusion”, whereby your defense of existence/non-existece, with respect to mind**, is mis-taken by antagonists in their collective proclamations regarding only existence (of)/non-existence (of), under the same conditions.

How foolish to ask of existence without mind, absent conjoined temporal qualification, when it is from mind the question is asked, in which that very qualification is immediately presupposed.

Existence is not an existent, from which follows existence belongs to mind alone as a pure conception; existence is given iff there is that mind capable of its deduction, and, that in which such deduction resides.

On the other hand, that which is conditioned by the pure conception, re: that which is an existent, merely indicates that on which the cognitively functional part of the human intellect performs. Cognitively functional in juxtaposition to the aesthetically pleasing.
(** reason, in all congruent instances)

All that to say this: even without any possibility of apodeictic empirical justifications, re: proofs, I agree with what you’re saying.

Science was born out of the quest for Truth, capital T…. — Wayfarer

Being more versed in the classics, what do you think an example, the chronological forerunner, of the modern(-ish) principle of induction would be, which says there can be no empirical discovery of capital T truth?

And given that “the quest for” is very far from “a determination of”, with respect to capital T truth…..I think it better said that science was born out of the incessant yet never entirely sufficient, not so much the comprehension of Nature, but comprehension of the human being’s relation to it.
————-

Conclusion — Wayfarer

As expected, well done. From this particular armchair, comes from it: the more the attempt to eliminate the explicit duality of human intelligence, the more the immersion in it. From which follows the general justification, detachment from objectivity doesn’t work.

Oh. And…please, pass the syrup?

Wonder. And the suspected deficiency thereof.

Might that be your bridge to the phenomenological “self-meditation”, by which one “….is able to liberate oneself from the captivation in which one is held by all that one accepts as being the case….”?

Phenomenology (…) is like studying the act of looking…. — Wayfarer

Not much rescuing of the subject there, insofar as the subject still has the functional necessity for understanding the content the study of looking implicates.

I know you knew, and thereby expected, such objection would arise; far be it from me to disappoint, donchaknow. (Grin)

(ever-so-slight nod, from the back of the room)

Not talking about an item.

Dunno if he states that unequivocally, but if his notion of absolute time is justified, then one has no logical recourse but to agree that time is independent of us.

But then, it is profoundly contradictory to profess the absolute of anything whatsoever, in juxtaposition to the impossibility for empirical verification, so…..

But all that really doesn’t matter, if time is given from the way we perceive, then time’s independence from the way we perceive is also contradictory, therefore, wrong.

If (….) time is coming from the way we perceive…. — frank

…..how can it possibly be independent of us?

Cool. Thanks.

I can dig the union (unity, if I may be so bold) of knower and known, but I’d like to see intellectual space allotted for procedure.

suffice to say that it sees philosophical detachment as superior to scientific objectivity, because it doesn't pre-suppose the division between knower and known that characterises modern thought. — Wayfarer

Even if philosophical detachment doesn’t presuppose the division, does it arrive at it through some form of logical inference?

I think Mww would agree that objects being real checks out…. — Bob Ross

Yeah, he would. With the provisio that “checks out” is relative to a specific theoretical framework. Within the confines of that same framework, it follows necessarily that space and time are not real.

But then, of course……there’s possibly as many frameworks as minds that can think them up.

Good quote.

I'm betting sure that Kant never said that any noumenon "appears." — tim wood

Safe bet, go all in. Wife’s car. That autographed Roger Maris 59th. First-born.

….what appears is the phenomenon, that is, a creation of mind…. — tim wood

What appears is the thing, that which effects the senses, the material object the representation of which becomes experience. Phenomenon is the creation of intuition specifically, mind generally if you like, representing the affect on the senses.

The noumenon is no creation of mind, and being itself thereby not a phenomenon, never appears. — tim wood

Not a phenomenon hence never appears, true, but a creation of understanding specifically, mind generally if you like. A creation of understanding is a conception; noumena is a conception alone, never anything else, never cognized, never sensed.

As an aside, Feynman said in one of his CalTech lectures, that fields are real things, insofar as they occupy space and are measurable as a force over time. From this point of view, magnetism does not refute empiricism, iff empiricism represents the possibility of knowledge of real things conditioned by space and time. Problem is….I can’t find the reference so…never mind.

If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie?
— Metaphysician Undercover

In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon. — Mww

OK, you say that intuition provides the boundary between the senses as out there, and the appearances in the mind, as in here. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’ve already stated that appearance is that which is an effect on the senses, as input; appearances, then, and the senses can be said to be “out there”. How the senses react to that which appears, as output, is sensation, which can be said to be “in here”. There is nothing to be gained procedurally speaking, by asking for a boundary, when all that’s necessary is a transformation of whatever kind, between out there and in here. I’ve also said already the human is not conscious of all that transpires between the appearance of a thing to the senses, and the judgement attributed to it, and if we’re not conscious of it we can neglect the effort required for determining wherever some boundary may be.

So "the faculty of intuition", may in this way, provide the mind (the internal) with the capacity to be receptive to sense activity…. — Metaphysician Undercover

And that’s all we need to move on to the next faculty, the next procedural step on the way to determining how the appearance is to be known. There is an explanation for what intuition does pursuant to speculative metaphysics, but, again, the subject himself, being unconscious of the what, has even less need of the how.
————-

All of my sensations appear to me to be right in the organs which sense them. — Metaphysician Undercover

That’s fine, if you like. I’ll stay with the effect of things on my sensory devices on the one hand, and the sensations such effects provide, accommodated by the type of sensory devices I possess, on the other. All I need is an input to the faculty of intuition, something from which phenomenon can be constructed. This is required in order to determine which sense has been affected, and what
a posteriori material is being processed, in which form may be imagined as belonging to it, and, VOILA!!!…a very basic image is born.
————-

A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.
— Mww

I wouldn't say the gap is bridged legitimately. You have conveniently left out the role of intuition here, — Metaphysician Undercover

Not left out; yet to be a systemic consideration; intuition plays no role in perception, but only in the formulae for representing that which is perceived.
————-

An object necessarily has a form, as its identity, and "form" is intelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed. And where, in Kantian transcendental metaphysics, does form reside?

Notice that "intelligible" signifies the possibility of being grasped by an intellect, so actually being apprehended by a human intellect is not required. — Metaphysician Undercover

Intelligible means necessarily cognizable by the human intellect, re: all logical criteria have been met. Unintelligible, then, merely means a cognition is impossible, even if a representation relating to a conception, is not. So what makes a conception a legitimate thought, but for which schemata representing it, is not at all possible? What’s missing?
—————-

This is how Kant turns things around from the traditional Christian perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting approach, but very far from the textual explanation.

Anyway…..enough for now.

If the senses are affected by the things sensed, then the senses are noumenal…. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, that doesn’t follow at all. That’s like saying an ice cube is noumenal because it shatters when hit by a hammer.
————-

If the senses are out there, and what appears to the mind is in here, then where does the boundary between these two lie? — Metaphysician Undercover

In the faculty of intuition, where that which appears acquires its representation, called phenomenon.
————-

If I say that the senses are out there, then the idea of a boundary between in here and out there makes no sense, because the sensations are in here, yet also in the senses, which are out there. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sensations are in the senses? If there were the case, why would we have both? You want the hand to tell you the thing is heavy when all it can do is tell you of the appearance of cellular compression. You want the ear to tell you there is a sound when all it can do is register the appearance of variations in pressure waves. And so on….
————-

….you have phenomena as belonging to intuition, a completely different thing from senses providing "internal images of the external things". — Metaphysician Undercover

Senses providing “internal images of external things” is not what I said.
————-

If mind is assumed to be the composite of those faculties, and all the faculties cannot be shown to co-exist as a unity of "mind", then there is an incoherency within the conception. — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn’t say all the faculties couldn’t co-exist. In fact, I said the mind could be called the composite of all the faculties, which makes explicit they do co-exist. Each faculty can still be imbued with its own dedicated functionality without contradicting the notion of a unity.
—————-

This capacity, to distinguish between external and internal, which you assign to the senses is an arbitrary judgement. That, distinction is a spatial judgement, so it requires intuition. — Metaphysician Undercover

This little dialectical segment is my fault, for not correcting you here:

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

Kant defines reality as “….Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a sensation in general…”. From that definition, insofar as only from the senses, and correspondingly by the sensations given from them, is any account of reality possible. This just says reality is given to us if or when the senses deliver sensations. So it is that the senses are in fact involved in both the external (input: effect of that thing which appears) and the internal (output: as affect corresponding to the appearance, which just is sensation). A completely legitimate explanatory bridge.

I probably should have just said…the senses allow us to distinguish. Or, allow a distinction to be possible.
————-

So the whole is filled with a self-contradicting idea, an intelligible object which is unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

Might help to know what the “ever-so-abstract logical hole” actually is, where it resides, and the complications arising from it. Knowing that, it becomes clear there is, not a contradiction but a theoretical inconsistency, inherent in noumena. It is not itself a self-contradictory idea, but it is an unintelligible object.

And Kant doesn’t, indeed cannot, deny the possibility of noumena, insofar as to do so is to falsify the primary ground of transcendental philosophy, re: “….I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself…”, which just says if I do think noumena, which is to hold a certain conception, and then prescribe to myself an object corresponding to it, then I immediately contradict the mechanisms I already authorize as that by which corresponding objects are prescribed to me at all, from which follows I have contradicted myself. The warning ends up being.…think noumena all you like; just don’t try to do anything intuitive with it. And if you can’t do anything intuitive with it, don’t bother thinking it in the first place.

The logical proof, and thereby the unintelligibility, is in the mechanism by which objects are prescribed on the one hand, which is determined by the very specific functionality of individual faculties on the other.

The legitimizing of noumena resides in a cognitive system I do not possess, arising for no other reason than I cannot say the cognitive system I possess is the only one there is. Phenomena belong to humans, noumena might belong to dolphins, or honey bees, or some rationality unknown to us. Which is….DUH!!!!…..all of them.

Philosophers get acclimatized to a very general use of words like "appearance". — Ludwig V

True enough, plus, words often get defined in order to accommodate a project. I’ve already mentioned the difference in meaning for the word appearance relative to the Kantian metaphysical project, as opposed to the common meaning relative to others.
—————-

….the senses do nothing but forward information in the form of sensation….
— Mww

Well, that's how we think of them, especially when we have little or no idea how they work. — Ludwig V

These days, there is good evidence for how they work. Before, thus from a metaphysical point of view, how they work wasn’t important enough to jeopardize speculative philosophy, insofar as humans are not even conscious of most of that which is under the purview of natural law anyway. Even now, while science has cleared much ignorance, the subject himself in general remains unconscious of most of his own intellectual machinations.
————-

….the fact that we can tell that some experiences are misleading means that we can distinguish appearances that are not misleading from those that are. — Ludwig V

And how do we tell? From whence does the distinction arise?

Sweeping up all sensations under one description is misleading and creates unnecessary problems. Look at the details. — Ludwig V

Not sure what that means. I can describe all sensations as merely that by which I become aware of my environment. I am not mislead and have no unnecessary problems, because the description does not contradict the facts. Someone else, describing senses in some other way, might then think me misled and invoking unnecessary problems, which is fine by me.

Show me the details?

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 internal — Metaphysician 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.

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.

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.

….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.

I know the term "doubt" is sometimes used to refer to an emotional state, but here I think it just means demanding justification for a proposition. — goremand

Yep, pretty much where I’m coming from. Self-awareness implies sensibility; self-consciousness implies logical thought. Doubt, insofar as it is a relative judgement, presupposes logical thought, of which the subject himself must be conscious. If such be the case, then we can just say self-consciousness represents the entirety of that which the subject himself must be conscious, from which follows the notion of a strict requirement, or what can be termed a principle.

…..self-awareness doesn't seem like a strict requirement for doubt. — goremand

I’d go with self-consciousness myself, rather than self-awareness.

Self-something, at any rate.

Interesting interpretation, I must say. I’ll have to think about it, try to find some correspondence with the relevant text.

So what happened to spatial movements making the concept of time necessary, rather than merely secondary?
— Mww

Spatial movements are what make 'the concept' of time necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok. That’s all I was asking.
————-

Where can I read about the reducing of time to an aspect of space?
— Mww

This is relativity theory. It's known as spacetime, in which time becomes the fourth dimension of space. — Metaphysician Undercover

“…. In order to have a complete description of the motion, we must specify how the body alters its position with time; i.e. for every point on the trajectory it must be stated at what time the body is situated there…”
(Einstein, Relativity….., 1. 3., 1916, in Lawson, 1920)

I don’t find the justification for the given “alters position with time”, with your “fourth dimension of space”. Besides not needing to delve into non-Galilean parameters.

So, while it is an empirical fact that universe pre-existed conscious beings, the way in which it exists outside of, or before, conscious beings is unknowable as a matter of principle — Wayfarer

Agreed; couldn’t be otherwise. I’m a little particular about descriptions of what there is to work with, those necessary conditions, and how they are treated.

Sense observation is of the external, therefore producing principles of spatial separations and movements. "Time" as being understood through internal reflection, and logical comparisons, is secondary. — Metaphysician Undercover

So what happened to spatial movements making the concept of time necessary, rather than merely secondary?

Where can I read about the reducing of time to an aspect of space?

Zeno's paradoxes, and the idea of infinite divisibility, had cast doubt toward the reality of spatial continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmmm….dammit, you’re right, I forgot about that. In the strictest possible sense of spatial continuity, yours is the stronger for being deferred to the temporal, but for the common understanding of the ordinary man…of which there are decidedly many more than philosophers per se….that a thing is in his way is very much more apparent than the notion that if he waits long enough, it won’t be.

As usual, you present interesting stuff, to which I like to think out loud about. To think out loud should not be construed to mean criticism, which would be pretty foolish of me, considering your superior level of academia.

…..with David Hume and the advent of modern philosophy, the whole concept of natural causation is thrown into question. — Wayfarer

I’d chalk that natural causation question up to QM rather than philosophy. Whether the cause/effect principle is resident in the human intellect, such that natural causation is comprehensible, that I would attribute to a changing philosophical agenda.

To conflate what comes first in time with what is most fundamental in being is to mistake the descriptive for the ontological. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. Hence the Kantian dictate that both are equally necessary conditions for empirical knowledge. The antinomies prove one can be nonetheless thought as ulterior or antecedent to the other.

The logical relations and causal connections we discern in the world are only possible because the world is idea—a representation shaped by the mind. — Wayfarer

The logical relations and causal connections we discern are a product of our intellectual capacity and only possible therefrom, having to do only with existent objects in relation to each other, or to ourselves. When the world as idea is thought as a universal concept, it is not necessary for us to discern the logical relations of its particular content.
————-

But the world as idea… only appears with the opening of the first eye.' — Wayfarer

It bothers me that world as idea…only appears. The world may indeed be an idea, a universal object of reason, re: that in which are found all possible objects but is not itself an object, but world as idea isn’t that which appears to an eye. Only existences appear, the world, as pure transcendental object, isn’t an existence.

I’m sorry, but “opening of the first eye” is absurd, if such is meant even remotely literal. To reconcile the absurdity, we are forced to admit the metaphor merely represents some arbitrary initial impact on a fully developed rational intelligence. The problem for humans then reduces to the opening of the first eye may not have even been human, but the world as idea is predicated on it anyway, which is a contradiction. Nothing’s solved by attributing first eye to humanity in general, nor to individual human subjects therein.
————-

How is the ding as sich not just as “outside” as the objective world? The “inner kernel” of an outside thing is just as outside as that of which it is internal.

What is "science proper?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

….dull reductions to "observation + modeling”…..sounds about right to me. I’d add in “experimenting”, and the whole process doesn’t have to be dull, necessarily. Although…dunno if I could sit still long enough waiting for a cosmic neutrino.

…."matter"; that being the concept which Berkeley insisted we can dispense with. — Metaphysician Undercover

Agreed.

In my understanding "matter" is a concept employed by Aristotle to underpin the observed temporal continuity of bodies, allowing for a body to have an identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Kinda agreed. I’d be more inclined to grant to the concept of matter the underpinning for spatial continuity allowing a body to have an identity.

….under Hegelian principles "matter" is still necessary as the kernel of content within the Idea. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand the concept represented as “becoming”, and, with respect to the kernel of content within the Idea, isn’t that more Platonic? Maybe where the notion of “becoming” initiated? My armchair mandates that matter is the kernel of content for experience; ideas, as such, have no material content at all.

Berkeley may have been opposed to realism, but that doesn't mean religion is opposed to realism. — Leontiskos

I’m not sure realism has much to do with it, whereas the primary source of it, its fundamental causality, does.

“…. Such is the artificial contrivance of this mighty machine of nature that, whilst its motions and various phenomena strike on our senses, the hand which actuates the whole is itself unperceivable to men of flesh and blood….”
(Principles…. , 1710, #151)

Lots commendable in the WWR excerpt, but for this:

….on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being….

Each conscious being indeed maintains the form, the condition, of its world in accordance with its effects, but each conscious being isn’t his own world’s existential causality.

That being said, there’s agreement whereby *reductive* materialism, as a purely monistic ontology, ignores the subject in favor of the regressive series of things.

Sure, no prob. The human can only account for his world in his own terms, and whatever the difference between his terms and Nature’s, cannot be determined by them. The illusion resides in thinking they can.

Right? Is this somewhat like what reminds you?

Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own….
— Mww

Yes, but is it just modern science? — Leontiskos

I think science did more than anything else to liberate the intellect, yes.
————-

I'm of the view that it was this emerging modern view of the universe that the good Bishop wished to oppose. — Wayfarer

I’m not sure he could do otherwise, could he? I guess I’m of the mind that, rather than oppose science, his raison d’etre was to uphold religion. I mean….

“…..But you will say, has Nature no share in the production of natural things, and must they be all ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of God? I answer, if by Nature is meant only the visible series of effects or sensations imprinted on our minds, according to certain fixed and general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense, cannot produce anything at all. But, if by Nature is meant some being distinct from God, as well as from the laws of nature, and things perceived by sense, I must confess that word is to me an empty sound without any intelligible meaning annexed to it. Nature, in this acceptation, is a vain chimera, introduced by those heathens who had not just notions of the omnipresence and infinite perfection of God….”
(Ibid 157)

…..YIKES!!!! Nonetheless odd as hell, I must say, that had I lived in 1710, I might have just as similar an opinion, as the different one I do have.

The interesting part? Science let it be known humans could have things, could do things, entirely on their own, or at least enough on their own to call into question isolated external causality of the Berkeley-ian “un-constructed” spirit type.
—————-



Kant called Berkeley’s idealism “dogmatic”, meaning it was formed as a doctrine without sufficient critical examination of the warrant for doing so, and the greatest of that was the principle esse est percipi, wherein the insufficient warrant falls on what it is to perceive, as formalized in ’s OP, re: “For Berkeley, perception encompasses the whole experience of the world as presented to the mind”. Which is these days pretty much established as not the case.

The way this relates to Kant, is that, generally, as you asked, in transcendental idealism, existence is granted outright, immediately removing it from necessary reference to ideas and the condition of our perceptions. Very generally, to be sure.

When the topic of this discussion was current affairs, religion ruled the day, hence, one couldn’t stray too far from it and maintain his cultural standing. It was a race of sorts, among interested parties anyway, not so much the common man, to offer the strongest arguments for the distribution of properties, whether they belonged to things given by Nature, or belonged to things given by deities. But then….Nature itself may have been given by deities, resulting in nothing new. Comparative philosophical doldrums.

Enter science proper, and stuff gets real interesting.

#34 a “….. Before we proceed any farther it is necessary we spend some time in answering objections which may probably be made against the principles we have hitherto laid down.

#34 b “….To all which, and whatever else of the same sort may be objected, I answer, that by the principles premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or anywise conceive or understand remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever.

#37 “….The philosophic, not the vulgar, substance, taken away.--I will be urged that this much at least is true, to wit, that we take away all corporeal substances. To this my answer is, that if the word substance be taken in the vulgar sense--for a combination of sensible qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like--this we cannot be accused of taking away: but if it be taken in a philosophic sense--for the support of accidents or qualities without the mind--then indeed I acknowledge that we take it away, if one may be said to take away that which never had any existence, not even in the imagination.

#33 “…. 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….”

#9 “…..The philosophical notion of matter involves a contradiction.--Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities. By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of anything existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call matter. By matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is plain that the very notion of what is called matter or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it….”
(A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Sec 1, Of the Principles…., 1710, in
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4723/4723-h/4723-h.htm)
—————-


First…cherry-picked, I know. I picked out what I thought most related to the OP’s query. There’s a veritable plethora of mitigating textual relevance the cherry-picking avoids, hopefully not so much as to show I missed the point completely.

Johnson, following fellow British empiricist Locke, used the primary qualities of things in order to refute the validity of mere ideas as resemblances of them, re: ideas cannot fracture a toe. But in doing that, insofar as, e.g., solidity in things is necessary for fracturing toes, he did nothing to prove such primary qualities were existents in things, the absence from which it follows, that such primary qualities remain mere ideas in the mind of the mediating perceiver, in accordance with Berkeley’s considered metaphysical thesis, in opposition to Locke.

If you can’t prove primary perceptible qualities in us are not ideas in an immediate principal perceiver, perhaps it can be argued…….what difference would it make to the human perceiving mind, if they were not? Was the idea of measurable distance implanted in my head as an idea belonging to some sort of prevalent, re: un-constructed, spirit, or does the idea belong to me alone, as a mere distinction in relative spaces?

Sapere aude anyone?

Oh, no real reason. It’s just that’s not the way humans normally do things.

Either you are intentionally being obtuse or you're less intelligent than artificial intelligence. — Harry Hindu

…..and with that, I’m out.