Realistic versus Anti-Realistic Views

[Luis Dellamary]

Hi! From a kind of naive point of view of this topics, I've always wondered how can you be an "anti-realist" if you define reality as an expression of consciousness. For example, saying that "society", "culture" or "structures and functions" in general are just concepts or "generals" is regarded by my colegues as "anti-realistic" perspectives. Like saying that the brain is just an image of experiential states of an individuated consciousness (that which knows that experiences). But, what is mind-bending to me is that that's their reality, they are "real" in that way. So I wonder, maybe from the point of view of monistic idealism (at least as I understand it from Bernardo's work), since everything is fundamentally mind or consciousness, the dychotomy "realist/ anti-realist" does not compute.

Can someone help me with this, what do you think?

[Scott Roberts]

On Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 12:52:30 PM UTC-10 luisde...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi! From a kind of naive point of view of this topics, I've always wondered how can you be an "anti-realist" if you define reality as an expression of consciousness. For example, saying that "society", "culture" or "structures and functions" in general are just concepts or "generals" is regarded by my colegues as "anti-realistic" perspectives. Like saying that the brain is just an image of experiential states of an individuated consciousness (that which knows that experiences). But, what is mind-bending to me is that that's their reality, they are "real" in that way. So I wonder, maybe from the point of view of monistic idealism (at least as I understand it from Bernardo's work), since everything is fundamentally mind or consciousness, the dychotomy "realist/ anti-realist" does not compute.

It doesn't compute.  The term "realist" has had different meanings over the centuries and from metaphysician to metaphysician. In the late Middle Ages, there was the nominalist/realist debate, where a "realist" was one who held that universals (or generals) were real, while a nominalist thought they were "just words". Totally separate from that, in the early 20th century, when idealists like Bradley were prominent on the scene, their opponents starting calling themselves "realists", in the sense of there being real stuff outside the mind. (Since ontological differences are basically differences over what one should call "real", this move by the idealist opponents was basically a move to prejudice the debate: who doesn't want to be thought to be realistic?). And so, since the opponents of idealism pretty much came out on top, the opposition "idealist vs. realist" has entered the historical lexicon.

What this means to me (being a realist in the old nominalist vs. realist sense), is that it is better to just not use the word 'realist' (or 'anti-realist') without a lot of clarification as to what sense one is using the word. But with that clarification, one can, in my opinion, argue, as BK has done (and as Coleridge did before him) that idealism is the most realist ontology. It is  the other ontologies that make stuff up.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"What this means to me (being a realist in the old nominalist vs. realist sense), is that it is better to just not use the word 'realist' (or 'anti-realist') without a lot of clarification as to what sense one is using the word. But with that clarification, one can, in my opinion, argue, as BK has done (and as Coleridge did before him) that idealism is the most realist ontology. It is  the other ontologies that make stuff up." 

Yep, this is why I like Hoffman's term "conscious realism" for his proposed ontology. Instead of ceding vocabulary to the rationalists and materialists, let's go (literally) Medieval on their asses!

[Luis Dellamary]

Yes! This is like a breath of fresh air. Totally agree now that you have clarify the origins of the terminology. I'm a linguist so maybe a little skewed towards "nominalism" although it makes a lot of sense to have generals or universals when they're properly defined as "attractors", whirpools or "probability distributions" in consciousness. Not just, as you said, "making stuff up" to make sense of a perspective in denial of anything outside its arbitrary boundaries. So yeah, I will claim the right to call myself a realist from an idealist perspective and remind my colegues of the "out-of-date" debate that the term "anti-realist" stands for (they're close friends so its fun to play that kind of verbal chess among us).

Thank you.

[Luis Dellamary]

I second that! We should reclaim the word for real! 

[martin...@gmail.com]

linguistically (semantically?) speaking, (if we remove the historical baggage from the word "realism") isn't the phrase "realist ontology" a tautology?

I move that after we've reclaimed it, we discard it, because it's implied.

[Luis Dellamary]

Yes! I see what you mean, it sounds tautological once you get to the “bottom” of its meaning. By definition any ontology (besides nihilism) makes a claim about what is real. It is realistic in so far as it takes a stand towards reality. Otherwise it will be something like to say “this is not real and I don’t know what its real if anything is real at all”... 

[Brad Walker]

Language is fluid. I don't see why we shouldn't ideally steer language towards more intuitive notions of "realism" and "anti-realism". Chalmers dispels the false idealism vs realism distinction in his idealism paper.

[Luis Dellamary]

Brad, this is an interesting point. Could you elaborate? What do you mean by "intuitive notions"? 

[Brad Walker]

Intuitive being an uninitiated person's initial impressions of what a word might mean. In the case of realism, realism means that there's an objective (consensual) reality with actual other subjects (not necessarily minds). Anti-realism denies an objective reality. These other distinctions deserve symbols that are more descriptive: more precise -isms, or phrases instead of single word -isms.

[Brad Walker]

Poorly named distinctions like idealism vs. realism are thinly disguised conclusion by definition fallacies. "Oh, you oppose reality?"

[Luis Dellamary]

I guess I have a different definition of "intuition" as a "non-logical/ non-intellectual" process of information retrieval from mind-at-large. I would not call "intuition" just any "first impression". Mainly because, from an anthropological perspective, our "first impressions" are full of preconceived (pretty intellectual) notions of how things are.

[Brad Walker]

intuitive: using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive

If someone hasn't thought about something their first impression will be their intuition. Hence the process of challenging intuitions and the term "counterintuitive".

[Brad Walker]

Maybe "common sense" better captures what I mean by intuitive, specifically for language.

[Luis Dellamary]

Yeah, it may be the case that "common sense" is a better phrase for our "first impressions" or our conventional use of words (irrespective of how they are "defined" in a dictionary). But then is the issue of "common sense" within scientific (or philosophical, which is the same for me) discourse. I would not trust it with the task of "... steer language towards more intuitive notions..." since I profoundly doubt our capacity to "by-pass" prejudice when we are not even trying, i.e. "following our common sense"... 

[Santeri Satama]

Aletheuein/apokalypsis/revelation/disclosing common sense, by deconstructing and unlearning conscious and unconscious presuppositions and beliefs... this movement does not need to concern with notion of pure tabula rasa, absolutely clean slate. Prejudice, or preferably some better term, can be metaphysical or ethical. Truth of mind and truth of heart. The whole process of intuiting common sense is already ethically motivated, so why try to step aside this common sense, truth of heart?

[luisde...@gmail.com]

I feel we're still struggling with definitions, but I will say that "...why try to step aside this common sense, truth of heart?" because, for me, there's a clean distinction between two kinds of processes with which we function even at the level of M@L: serial vs analog, linear vs non-linear, intellectual vs intuitive. And for what I've seen we are not, in general, and within cultural-specific constraints, too good at making that distinction. And also because I´ve learned and witnessed the difference between "ethics" regarding the way we think we ought to behave and "being" of a better quality of consciousness from which there is no ethic or common sense needed in the way we originally define it, at least as Brad did. So for me is a matter of "stepping out" of the "behaving according to X" into the being. I believe the "serial" or "intellectual" process which I take to be the base of common sense is seriously handicapped in matters of learning at the being level, so to speak. But, if we're going to say that there's such a thing like an "intuitive common sense" the "truth of heart" you refer to, then I will (from a social science perspective) not called it "common sense" which for me refers to "patterns of convention within a socio-cultural environment". 

[Santeri Satama]

Expressions like "broken heart", "you are in my heart", "my heart goes with you" etc. are patterns of convention within a socio-cultural environment, yes? And 'sense' as in common sense can refer primarily to sentience instead of sapience, as the bare word suggests?

Even if common sentience is also a consensus reality of a degree, the sentient consensus of phenomenal world is stronger than sapient consensus between various theories and ideologies. I was tempted to ask "Or do you disagree?", but that would just prove the point. 

The point was common sense of our first impressions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but social science focuses on interpersonal relations? Not on sentient first impressions, but on social roles of our face masks, aka persona? Whether visually or by intuitive feel of both, do you agree that the first impressions we read and get are emotions? Is this anywhere close to what Brad was saying?

[Brad Walker]

My point is that in philosophy things tend to be named terribly. Terms with common names e.g. realism have definitions that can only be understood in a historical context of many debateable definitions of that term. Sometimes concepts are -isms named after their founder. Sometimes names seem to have concrete definitions but don't really e.g. physicalism (isn't panpsychism arguably a flavor of physicalism)? This makes philosophy more inaccessible than it could be, and it can lead to popular false distinctions like idealism vs. realism. One thing that could be done is only name a concept after a common term if there's a simple, concise definition that doesn't require historical context and could conceivably be not too distant from a first impression.

[Santeri Satama]

Brad, you sound like Wittgenstein! :)

[martin...@gmail.com]

>My point is that in philosophy things tend to be named terribly.

Totally agree. Another example:  Non-dualism vs Monism.

Just looking at the root-meaning of the words we get:

Non-dual : "not 2"

Mon(o)     : "one"

ergo: Monism is a subset of non-dualism. Right? :)

(Wrong.)