A Priori Vs A Posteriori Does Not Exist.

[Eodnhoj7]

You need to define what do you mean by 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' first.
Without proper definition, anything goes.

Generally, a priori = nature, a posteriori = nurture.
The issue of "nature versus nurture" is such a common topic so such concepts do exist in reality.

The other common dichotomy of the above is from Kant who proved such concepts do exist in reality and very relevant to his theories.

There are other perspectives to the above dichotomy.

So what is your perspective on the above?

A priori is that before the senses.

A posteriori is that after the senses.

Do places exist and what accounts for the relations between places if they do?

Places are things. For example if a ball is positioned in a field the position is a "thing" (ie the field). Dually if a spot is positioned on the ball, the position is a thing (ie the ball). Positions are things within things.

[Eodnhoj7]

You need to define what do you mean by 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' first.
Without proper definition, anything goes.

Generally, a priori = nature, a posteriori = nurture.
The issue of "nature versus nurture" is such a common topic so such concepts do exist in reality.

The other common dichotomy of the above is from Kant who proved such concepts do exist in reality and very relevant to his theories.

There are other perspectives to the above dichotomy.

So what is your perspective on the above?

A priori is that before the senses.

A posteriori is that after the senses.

Seems vague.
'Sense' is to be limited to sense organs and their respective neural elements.
What about sense data, perception, cognition, consciousness, experiences that result from the triggering of the sense organs.

Vague is a subjective viewpoint.

[tapaticmadness]

A priori is that before the senses.

A posteriori is that after the senses.

Do places exist and what accounts for the relations between places if they do?

Places are things. For example if a ball is positioned in a field the position is a "thing" (ie the field). Dually if a spot is positioned on the ball, the position is a thing (ie the ball). Positions are things within things.

What about the relations between places? Are they things also?

[tapaticmadness]

A priori is that before the senses.

A posteriori is that after the senses.

Seems vague.
'Sense' is to be limited to sense organs and their respective neural elements.
What about sense data, perception, cognition, consciousness, experiences that result from the triggering of the sense organs.

Vague is a subjective viewpoint.

It is my great campaign in ontology to take the vague and the indefinite out of the realm of the subjective and make it real and objective. Indeed, in my ontology there is no subjective realm. Everything I experience is real.

I also disagree with you when you say that 'sense' is limited to sense organs and their respective neural elements. So-called secondary qualities, such as color and fragrance and sound are just as real and objective as anything else. That is my extreme realism. I follow the New Realists of a century ago.

John Passmore, in his book A Hundred Years of Philosophy, wrote:
"The first, in England, to formulate the characteristic doctrines of the New Realism was T.P. Nunn. Best known as an educationalist, Nunn wrote little on philosophy, but that little had an influence out of all proportion to its modest dimensions. In particular, his contribution to a symposium on ‘Are Secondary Qualities Independent of Perception?” was widely studied both in England where, as we have already noted, it struck Bertrand Russell’s roving fancy, and in the United States. Nunn there sustained two theses: (1) that both primary and the secondary qualities of bodies are really in them, whether they are perceived or not: (2) that qualities exist as they are perceived.
Much of his argument is polemical in form, with Stout’s earlier articles as its chief target. Stout had thought he could begin by presuming that there are at least some elements in our experience which exist only in being perceived – he instanced pain. But Nunn objects that pain, precisely in the manner of a material object, presents difficulties to us, raises obstacles in our path, is, in short, something we must reckon with. ‘Pain,’ he therefore concludes, ‘is something outside my mind, with which my mind may come into various relations.’ A refusal to admit that anything we experience depends for its existence upon the fact that it is experienced was to be the most characteristic feature of the New Realism.

The secondary qualities, Stout had also said, exist only as objects of experience. If we look at a buttercup in a variety of lights we see different shades of colour, without having any reason to believe that the buttercup itself has altered; if a number of observers plunge their hands into a bowl of water, they will report very different degrees of warmth, even although nothing has happened which could affect the water’s temperature. Such facts demonstrate, Stout thought, that secondary qualities exist only as 'sensa' – objects of our perception; they are not actual properties of physical objects.

Nunn’s reply is uncompromising. The contrast between ‘sensa’ and ‘actual properties’ is, he argues, an untenable one. All the shades of colour which the buttercup presents to an observer are actual properties of the buttercup; and all the hotnesses of the water are properties of the water. The plain man and the scientist ascribe a standard temperature and a standard colour to a thing and limit it to a certain region of space, because its complexity would otherwise defeat them. The fact remains, Nunn argues, that a thing has not one hotness, for example, but many, and that these hotnesses are not in a limited region of space but in various places around about the standard object. A thing is hotter an inch away than a foot away and hotter on a cold hand than on a warm one, just as it is a paler yellow in one light than it is in another light. To imagine otherwise is to confuse between the arbitrary ‘thing’ of everyday life and the ‘thing’ as experience shows it of be.

In Nunn’s theory of perception, then, the ordinary conception of a material thing is revolutionized; that is the price he has to pay for his Realism. A ‘thing’, now, is a collection of appearances, even if every appearance is independent of the mind before which it appears."

[Eodnhoj7]

Do places exist and what accounts for the relations between places if they do?

Places are things. For example if a ball is positioned in a field the position is a "thing" (ie the field). Dually if a spot is positioned on the ball, the position is a thing (ie the ball). Positions are things within things.

What about the relations between places? Are they things also?

If a ball is in a field and the grass is what connects the ball to the field what connects the things is a thing with all things being positions between positions.

[tapaticmadness]

Places are things. For example if a ball is positioned in a field the position is a "thing" (ie the field). Dually if a spot is positioned on the ball, the position is a thing (ie the ball). Positions are things within things.

What about the relations between places? Are they things also?

If a ball is in a field and the grass is what connects the ball to the field what connects the things is a thing with all things being positions between positions.

The relations in that description are "in", "connects", "with", and "between". Grass is not a relation. You haven't said whether or not you think relations exist.

[Eodnhoj7]

What about the relations between places? Are they things also?

If a ball is in a field and the grass is what connects the ball to the field what connects the things is a thing with all things being positions between positions.

The relations in that description are "in", "connects", "with", and "between". Grass is not a relation. You haven't said whether or not you think relations exist.

Grass connects the ball to the field and is the position between the ball and the field. Relation is the inversion between one phenomenon and another. The ball relates to the field through the grass, the grass is the point of inversion between one phenomenon and another.

[tapaticmadness]

If a ball is in a field and the grass is what connects the ball to the field what connects the things is a thing with all things being positions between positions.

The relations in that description are "in", "connects", "with", and "between". Grass is not a relation. You haven't said whether or not you think relations exist.

Grass connects the ball to the field and is the position between the ball and the field. Relation is the inversion between one phenomenon and another. The ball relates to the field through the grass, the grass is the point of inversion between one phenomenon and another.

What does this mean - "Relation is the inversion between one phenomenon and another"

[Veritas Aequitas]

Seems vague.
'Sense' is to be limited to sense organs and their respective neural elements.
What about sense data, perception, cognition, consciousness, experiences that result from the triggering of the sense organs.

Vague is a subjective viewpoint.

It is my great campaign in ontology to take the vague and the indefinite out of the realm of the subjective and make it real and objective. Indeed, in my ontology there is no subjective realm. Everything I experience is real.

I also disagree with you when you say that 'sense' is limited to sense organs and their respective neural elements. So-called secondary qualities, such as color and fragrance and sound are just as real and objective as anything else. That is my extreme realism. I follow the New Realists of a century ago.

John Passmore, in his book A Hundred Years of Philosophy, wrote:
"The first, in England, to formulate the characteristic doctrines of the New Realism was T.P. Nunn. Best known as an educationalist, Nunn wrote little on philosophy, but that little had an influence out of all proportion to its modest dimensions. In particular, his contribution to a symposium on ‘Are Secondary Qualities Independent of Perception?” was widely studied both in England where, as we have already noted, it struck Bertrand Russell’s roving fancy, and in the United States. Nunn there sustained two theses: (1) that both primary and the secondary qualities of bodies are really in them, whether they are perceived or not: (2) that qualities exist as they are perceived.
Much of his argument is polemical in form, with Stout’s earlier articles as its chief target. Stout had thought he could begin by presuming that there are at least some elements in our experience which exist only in being perceived – he instanced pain. But Nunn objects that pain, precisely in the manner of a material object, presents difficulties to us, raises obstacles in our path, is, in short, something we must reckon with. ‘Pain,’ he therefore concludes, ‘is something outside my mind, with which my mind may come into various relations.’ A refusal to admit that anything we experience depends for its existence upon the fact that it is experienced was to be the most characteristic feature of the New Realism.

The secondary qualities, Stout had also said, exist only as objects of experience. If we look at a buttercup in a variety of lights we see different shades of colour, without having any reason to believe that the buttercup itself has altered; if a number of observers plunge their hands into a bowl of water, they will report very different degrees of warmth, even although nothing has happened which could affect the water’s temperature. Such facts demonstrate, Stout thought, that secondary qualities exist only as 'sensa' – objects of our perception; they are not actual properties of physical objects.

Nunn’s reply is uncompromising. The contrast between ‘sensa’ and ‘actual properties’ is, he argues, an untenable one. All the shades of colour which the buttercup presents to an observer are actual properties of the buttercup; and all the hotnesses of the water are properties of the water. The plain man and the scientist ascribe a standard temperature and a standard colour to a thing and limit it to a certain region of space, because its complexity would otherwise defeat them. The fact remains, Nunn argues, that a thing has not one hotness, for example, but many, and that these hotnesses are not in a limited region of space but in various places around about the standard object. A thing is hotter an inch away than a foot away and hotter on a cold hand than on a warm one, just as it is a paler yellow in one light than it is in another light. To imagine otherwise is to confuse between the arbitrary ‘thing’ of everyday life and the ‘thing’ as experience shows it of be.

In Nunn’s theory of perception, then, the ordinary conception of a material thing is revolutionized; that is the price he has to pay for his Realism. A ‘thing’, now, is a collection of appearances, even if every appearance is independent of the mind before which it appears."

I read an article on New Realism here.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ew-realism

There are loads of criticisms against New Realism and in the end it would appear it had ran out of gas.

Although the New Realists hoped to produce other collections of studies, and although their discussions continued through 1914, according to Perry disagreements that had been subordinated and only imperfectly concealed, divergence of interests, and the ambition of each to write his own book soon divided them. As a movement, New Realism was soon displaced by the second major realist movement of the twentieth century, Critical Realism, which also developed and published a platform and joint program.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ew-realism

As an alternative I would suggest the 'Empirical Realism' of Kant.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... -idealism/

[tapaticmadness]

I read an article on New Realism here.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ew-realism

There are loads of criticisms against New Realism and in the end it would appear it had ran out of gas.

Although the New Realists hoped to produce other collections of studies, and although their discussions continued through 1914, according to Perry disagreements that had been subordinated and only imperfectly concealed, divergence of interests, and the ambition of each to write his own book soon divided them. As a movement, New Realism was soon displaced by the second major realist movement of the twentieth century, Critical Realism, which also developed and published a platform and joint program.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ew-realism

As an alternative I would suggest the 'Empirical Realism' of Kant.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... -idealism/

Every philosophy in time is heavily criticized. No problem. Philosophy is not a popularity contest. Critical Realism, as I understand it, is a form of idealism, maybe Kantian idealism. I will fight against it. Why do you think that kind of idealism is better than Direct Realism? Please tell me why you are against The New Realism. The philosopher I follow is a Direct Realism, not a Critical Realist. Gustav Bergmann. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gustav+bergm ... nb_sb_noss

[tapaticmadness]

As an alternative I would suggest the 'Empirical Realism' of Kant.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... -idealism/

I read through that link you gave me about The New Realism. It seems that the one criticism that prevails there is the one criticism that has always been leveled against direct realism, namely how to account for false perception, illusion, hallucination, misprision, error and all the rest. And the one answer that direct realists always give is that all those mistaken things are also real things, external to thought, objective and "out there".

The other criticism is that such realism is impersonal and doesn't account for the individual and his/her contribution to reality. Yes, realism is impersonal, so what. Today's worship of the individual and each person's difference is, in my opinion, wrong. I have no objection to an impersonal ontology.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I read an article on New Realism here.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ew-realism

There are loads of criticisms against New Realism and in the end it would appear it had ran out of gas.

Although the New Realists hoped to produce other collections of studies, and although their discussions continued through 1914, according to Perry disagreements that had been subordinated and only imperfectly concealed, divergence of interests, and the ambition of each to write his own book soon divided them. As a movement, New Realism was soon displaced by the second major realist movement of the twentieth century, Critical Realism, which also developed and published a platform and joint program.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities ... ew-realism

As an alternative I would suggest the 'Empirical Realism' of Kant.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... -idealism/

Every philosophy in time is heavily criticized. No problem. Philosophy is not a popularity contest. Critical Realism, as I understand it, is a form of idealism, maybe Kantian idealism. I will fight against it. Why do you think that kind of idealism is better than Direct Realism? Please tell me why you are against The New Realism. The philosopher I follow is a Direct Realism, not a Critical Realist. Gustav Bergmann. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gustav+bergm ... nb_sb_noss

Critical Realism is not Kant's idealism nor any form of idealism per se. Note,

In the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data (for example, those of primary qualities) can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data (for example, those of secondary qualities and perceptual illusions) do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events. Put simply, critical realism highlights a mind-dependent aspect of the world that reaches to understand (and comes to an understanding of) the mind-independent world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_ ... erception)

In general, direct realism is this;

In philosophy of mind, naïve realism, also known as direct realism, common sense realism or perceptual realism, is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. Objects obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone to observe them.[1] They are composed of matter, occupy space and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism

As stated above, I am with Kant's Empirical Realism, i.e. whatever is real is empirically grounded but not absolutely independent of the human conditions.

In general, why I do not agree with Direct Realism is, the subject is part and parcel of reality, thus the subject cannot be extricated and be absolutely independent from the reality in which it is part and parcel of.
Thus the subject is always in engagement with reality.

Kant's Empirical Realism proposes,
1. Reality is a spontaneous emergent with the subject.
2. Then the subject perceive reality [empirically] as external and independent in another sub-perspective.

It is because reality is grounded as an interactive emergent with the subject that I do not accept reality is absolutely independent from the subject. Note the key word is 'absolutely'.

[Veritas Aequitas]

As an alternative I would suggest the 'Empirical Realism' of Kant.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant ... -idealism/

I read through that link you gave me about The New Realism. It seems that the one criticism that prevails there is the one criticism that has always been leveled against direct realism, namely how to account for false perception, illusion, hallucination, misprision, error and all the rest. And the one answer that direct realists always give is that all those mistaken things are also real things, external to thought, objective and "out there".

This is odd.
How can the gnome [hallucination] the schizo claimed to be talking to in his garden be existing as real out there independent of his mind?

What about the mistaken snake-from-a-rope in the shade?
Surely the "snake" which is a false perception cannot have existed as absolutely independently 'out there'.
That "snake' is merely an image in the mind of the subject.

The other criticism is that such realism is impersonal and doesn't account for the individual and his/her contribution to reality. Yes, realism is impersonal, so what. Today's worship of the individual and each person's difference is, in my opinion, wrong. I have no objection to an impersonal ontology.

Yes, philosophical realism is impersonal and its reality is actually an illusion.
There is no way, a direct realist will ever have direct contact and realization with the 'object' of perception.

The Direct Realist lives in two parallel words, i.e.

• 1. the world of absolutely independent objects/things.
  2. the perceived object in his mind, sense data, etc.

The above gives us the "correspondence theory of truth" but there is no way the truth of 1 above can be reconciled to the truth of 2 above with precision.
This also raised the problem of Meno's Paradox.

Note [earlier] Russell's doubt;

Among these surprising possibilities, doubt suggests that perhaps there is no table at all.

Such questions are bewildering, and it is difficult to know that even the strangest hypotheses may not be true. Thus our familiar table, which has roused but the slightest thoughts in us hitherto, has become a problem full of surprising possibilities. The one thing we know about it is that it is not what it seems. Beyond this modest result, so far, we have the most complete liberty of conjecture. Leibniz tells us it is a community of souls: Berkeley tells us it is an idea in the mind of God; sober science, scarcely less wonderful, tells us it is a vast collection of electric charges in violent motion.
-Problem of Philosophy

[tapaticmadness]

This is odd.

Do you have any interest in how I see the world, in my view of reality? If so I can describe it to you. I would love to be able to see the world as you see it. If you want you can describe it to me. I am tired of reading excerpts about other people's world out of internet encyclopedias. I am neither a scholar nor an academician who needs to annotate his thoughts.

BTW, my understanding of direct realism is the opposite of indirect realism. There are no mediators or representatives or vicars or deputies between my awareness and the object of that awareness. I do not see the world through sense data, no matter how faithful to what is out there.

[Veritas Aequitas]

This is odd.

Do you have any interest in how I see the world, in my view of reality? If so I can describe it to you. I would love to be able to see the world as you see it. If you want you can describe it to me. I am tired of reading excerpts about other people's world out of internet encyclopedias. I am neither a scholar nor an academician who needs to annotate his thoughts.

You have stated your views are those of Direct Realism.
I have produced what is generally described as Direct Realism above.
Is your description different from the above?
If different, you cannot claim your views are of Direct Realism.

BTW, my understanding of direct realism is the opposite of indirect realism. There are no mediators or representatives or vicars or deputies between my awareness and the object of that awareness. I do not see the world through sense data, no matter how faithful to what it out there.

If you claim, there are no mediators or representatives or vicars or deputies between my awareness and the object of that awareness, then that is neither direct realism nor indirect realism.

Kantian empirical realism [my view] do make such a claim,
there are no mediators or representatives or vicars or deputies between my awareness and the object of that awareness.
In this case the realization of reality emerges spontaneously with the subject without anything in between in its initial emergence of reality.
It is only thereafter that there is a sense of internal and external reality.