Modified Realism
Jan Dejnozka
> In what sense independent? Different sense organs, different rocks.
> Yes? Different beings, perhaps no rocks at all. What do you think?
%%%%% I'm using a perfectly ordinary sense of mind- and
language-independence. Nobody has denied we that we all perceive rocks
from different perspectives, and no realist would be impressed by your
mentioning that fact. You offer no reasons for thinking there is
anything problematic about that for realists, either in
intelligibility or in fact.
> Hmm. I don't know what to make of your modifications. Sound almost
> Nietzschean to me. Which means I like it.
%%%%% The concept of existence as power is from Plato. Kaufmann's
_Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist_ has a fair number
of references to Plato.
> So you hold that there is a way of determining (once and for all or
> just for now?) what a thing is? Do you mean what it is *independent*
> of our ways or simply how it is for us? I think you know by now I
> find the first notion very problematic.
%%%%% But you offer no reasons for finding this common-sense notion
problematic. And I said "tries." In some cases we may never
succeed. In others, we seem to have progressively greater success. In
some simple cases like those mentioned by Plato, there seems to be
success. There is a way of determining once and for all how many
letters are in a certain word, or that two plus two equals four, or
whether I seem to see a house. You offer no reasons for thinking that
realists must be committed to holding that we have, or can have,
perfect knowledge of how all things in themselves are.
> While I don't see how anything we know can either be mind nor
> language independent, I consider myself a Realist. Why not? The
> decision to be a Realist is made through thought and language.
%%%%% This is a red herring. Of course we have to use words to say we
decide for or against realism. Nobody ever denied it, and no realist
would be impressed by your mentioning it. You offer no reasons for
thinking there is anything problematic about that for realism.
We must always remember our pre-philosophical starting point,
that is, what seems intelligible and obvious to the pre-philosopher.
Concerning realism, the starting point is naive realism. The burden is
on you if you wish to show there is something wrong with naive
realism, say, as spelled out by Butchvarov's rough working definition
of "realism." Most people seem to have no trouble understanding what
is meant by mind- and language-independence, and seem to have no
trouble identifying many things as objective facts which would satisfy
his definition. If you have trouble with doing these things, you need
to explain why.
Was Wittgenstein a naive realist? Would he have defended naive
realism by saying he is a competent adult speaker of a language?
Knowledge implies objectivity, and so implies mind- and
language-independent evidence. Knowledge based on mind- or
language-relative evidence is not knowledge at all. You seem to be
using the word "know" in a way that requires careful explanation of
its radical deviation from ordinary use. Perhaps you mean that
everything is presented to us in our own perspective, but presentation
is not the same thing as knowledge.
Happy New Year,
Jan
http://www.members.tripod.com/~Jan_Dejnozka/index.html includes vitae,
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Lars Pedersen
Hi! I'm a newcommer to this group and only an undergraduate student, so
if what I'm writing is way below the level of debate, please just ignore
me. I'll get the point. :-)
> > In what sense independent? Different sense organs, different rocks.
> > Yes? Different beings, perhaps no rocks at all. What do you think?
> %%%%% I'm using a perfectly ordinary sense of mind- and
> language-independence. Nobody has denied we that we all perceive rocks
> from different perspectives, and no realist would be impressed by your
> mentioning that fact.
As I understand the problem, the notion of something-of-which-we-have-
different-perspectives is what divides the realist from the antirealist.
Is that what you want an argument to show is unintelligible?
> Concerning realism, the starting point is naive realism. The burden is
> on you if you wish to show there is something wrong with naive
> realism, say, as spelled out by Butchvarov's rough working definition
> of "realism." Most people seem to have no trouble understanding what
> is meant by mind- and language-independence, and seem to have no
> trouble identifying many things as objective facts which would satisfy
> his definition. If you have trouble with doing these things, you need
> to explain why.
Well, if our concepts of "real", "objective", "substance", "causality",
"thing" and so forth are to be learned by a language-user, I can't see
how a mind- and language-independent world can play a role in that
process.
My door is an "objective real" door because I bang my head on it when I
try to walk through it. No matter how hard I wish it wasn't so, it still
doesn't bend to my will. If it was an unreal imagined door instead of an
objectively real door, I would be able to think it away, or pass through
it without opening it.
If this really is something like how we aquire our concept of
independent-of-us, it involves an essential reference to the frustration
of a will(wanting to pass through the door). It seems to me to be a
suspicious project to expand this concept of reality into the pre-
philosophic understanding of mind- and language-independence, understood
as the claim that there is one common real world for any possible
consciousness.
Perhaps some alien lifeform would be like we imagine a ghost to be,
capable of walking right through the door. In my point of view, such a
ghost has to learn "objective real" the same way that we do, and I'm not
sure that to such a ghost would consider the door "objective real".
Taking the thought experiment further, we might imagine that this ghost
could meet some resistance from other features of its experience, which
we don't consider "mind-independent real". Perhaps the ghost cannot pass
through things painted blue even though it wants to. Wouldn't the ghost
be inclined to say that only the blue things are "objective real"?
(And that colour is a primary quality)
In my view it is plain wrong to speak of a reality without reference to
the consciousness who experience it. If the pre-philosophic idea would
amount to saying anything like that I think it is mistaken, and it is so
because it doesn't set limits for correct or incorrect use of language.
I think the burden is on the realist to show how we can use the concept
of "existence" to speak of a world independent of consciousness.
Bruce Denner
>You offer no reasons for thinking that
>realists must be committed to holding that we have, or can have,
>perfect knowledge of how all things in themselves are.
I wasn't suggesting perfect knowledge. Just knwoledge of something outside
our language, or mind... It seems to be that every attempt to establish
that runs into the problem of standing outside ourselves. Still, I'm a
Realist in the ordinary, what you call later on the pre-philosophical. In
that vein I wrote...
>> While I don't see how anything we know can either be mind nor
>> language independent, I consider myself a Realist. Why not? The
>> decision to be a Realist is made through thought and language.
and Jan responded...
>%%%%% This is a red herring. Of course we have to use words to say we
>decide for or against realism. Nobody ever denied it, and no realist
>would be impressed by your mentioning it. You offer no reasons for
>thinking there is anything problematic about that for realism.
What's problematic for me is to use language to say somethign outside of
language.
> We must always remember our pre-philosophical starting point,
>that is, what seems intelligible and obvious to the pre-philosopher.
>Concerning realism, the starting point is naive realism. The burden is
>on you if you wish to show there is something wrong with naive
>realism,
I have no problem with everyday Realism, nor do I see it as necessarily
naive. As a researcher, I check and re-check my findings; and I consider my
findings reflect how the world is for us.
>Most people seem to have no trouble understanding what
>is meant by mind- and language-independence, and seem to have no
>trouble identifying many things as objective facts which would satisfy
>his definition.
Agreed. But the philosophial task (as I see it) is to clarify what is meant
by the expression "mind-independence" and objectivity. I cringe when I hear
educated scientists say that "science is not objective." To defend
objectivity in terms of an independent world of things is to invite such
comments and related forms of scepticism.
> Knowledge implies objectivity, and so implies mind- and
>language-independent evidence. Knowledge based on mind- or
>language-relative evidence is not knowledge at all.
I respectfully disagree. Anything which was independent of our language, we
could never speak of. Anything which is independent of our mind, we could
never know.
>From my point of view, it only because we have a mind capable of inventing
a language that we can fashion a notion of objectivity.
Happy 21Century!
bruce