Doesn't evolution imply physicalism? — RogueAI

Broadly speaking, Aping Mankind is about sloppy science. That is, it’s an attack on scientism, the mistaken belief that all important questions are best tackled with the use of natural science techniques. It’s about how hubris can cause as prestigious a subject as science to overestimate and overextend itself. More specifically, Aping Mankind is about the impact of this tendency on biological theories of human mental development, with all the philosophical mind/body issues which that involves. Raymond Tallis delivers a heartfelt polemic against what he sees as a great many errors and unproven assumptions, which are wide-ranging and yet interlinked. What holds these assumptions together is a blind adherence to what seems to be the most scientifically-convenient – though not necessarily correct – philosophy, a form of what is called ‘materialism’. In the process Tallis trains his guns on an array of notables, such as John Gray, Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. As ammunition he has coined some new words, for example, those used in the book’s subtitle, ‘neuromania’ and ‘darwinitis’.

The core of realism, probably also to no avail, but for comparison, is simply that there are statements that are true, yet not known or even believed.

Things such as those we haven't found out yet, or are mistaken about.

That is, there is a world that is not dependent on our understanding of it. — Banno

I submit that the only need to make sense of appearances being deceptive, is if they are mistakenly treated as “looks like” as opposed to the intended notion of “present as”. — Mww

[1] We perceive sensible objects to be F.
[2] But every sensible object is, at best, imperfectly F. That is, it is both F and not F. It falls short of being truly F.
[3 ] We are aware of this imperfection in the objects of perception.
[4] So we perceive objects to be imperfectly F.
[5] To perceive something as imperfectly F, one must already have in mind something that is perfectly F, something that the imperfectly F things fall short of. (e.g, we have an idea of equality that all sticks, stones, etc., only imperfectly exemplify.)
[6] So we have in mind something that is perfectly F.
[7] Thus, there is something that is perfectly F (e.g. equality), that we have in mind in such cases.
[8] Therefore, there is such a thing as the F itself (e.g., the Equal itself), and it is distinct from any sensible object.

I would have guessed someone more recent. — jgill

TR45H will keep his mouth shut and stay off social media — 180 Proof

I understand by thetranscendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding.

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner possibility to be valid only for appearance– which, separated from our sensibility, is nothing –matter for him is only a species of representations (intuition), which are call external, not as if they related to objects that are external in themselves but because they relate perceptions to space, where all things are external to one another, but that space itself is in us. — (CPR, A369, 379)

When one introspects upon their experience (which is consciousness), they will begin to realize that every object within their experience is wholly reducible to a collection of sensations. — Bob Ross

However, the typical definition of ontological idealism is that it is the view that all of reality consists solely of the mental. — Ø implies everything

Stevenson's compilation is the latest to have had no impact...why is this? — 180 Proof

universeness et al points out. — 180 Proof

why worry? — Jamal

Thomists and other critics of Ockham have tended to present traditional [i.e. 'scholastic'] realism with its forms or natures, as the solution to the modern problem of knowledge. It seems to me that it does not quite get to the heart of the matter. A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.

In short, the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. — Joshua Hochschild - What's Wrong with Ockham?

I agree that we can discursively break the world up and think about the category or concept of a dog as apart from any particular dog. We indeed have that sort of metacognition. — green flag

Neoplatonic mathematics is governed by a fundamental distiction which is indeed inherent in Greek science in general, but is here most strongly formulated. According to this distinction, one branch of mathematics participates in the contemplation of that which is in no way subject to change, or to becoming and passing away. This branch contemplates that which is always such as it is and which alone is capable of being known: for that which is known in the act of knowing, being a communicable and teachable possession, must be something that is once and for all fixed. — Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra.

I wouldn't even say they are so different. — green flag

It's also hard to make sense of the claim that only such objects exist, — green flag

There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform, and for the performance of which this quality of being is invoked. That function is knowing. — William James

it's absurd to frame Wittgenstein as antispiritual — green flag

It seems you have studied the evidence Stevenson produced more than I. — universeness

What idealists 'want to say' (but don't manage to say) is roughly correct. That's my claim. — green flag

And do you accept his classification, wherein ideas do exist, and it's only universals that don't? — Jamal

But another way of paying attention to the differentiation is to say that something exists in a different way. — Jamal

We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times). Thus thoughts and feelings, minds and physical objects exist. But universals do not exist in this sense; we shall say that they subsist or have being, where 'being' is opposed to 'existence' as being timeless. — Bertrand Russell

In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers (i.e. Spinoza, Leibniz, Descartes) held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is.

What have you got against the use of “exist” for ideas, numbers, etc.? — Jamal

it looks like you’re downgrading numbers just because they’re not objects of physical science. — Jamal

So, in my view, I directly experience sensations: i.e., the five physical senses, emotions, and thoughts. Everything else is an idea that makes sense of my perceptions. — Art48

What is an "arithmetical fact"? That we use a human invented symbolism like "2+2=4" and that this has rules of use, and has application in our world. OK. Or, do you mean "2+2=4" is a fact because it corresponds to some eternal idea. — Richard B

What make "arithmetical facts" true? — Richard B

something in an occult sphere — green flag

(probably to no avail) — Wayfarer

'Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'

Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.

The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.

This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.

Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them. — Bryan Magee Schopenhauer's Philosophy, Pp 106-107