Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

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Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 9:59 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:06 pm I have not explicitly endorsed nor implied Logical Positivism, so that's an straw man fallacy of yours. I have already stated that I'm more inclined towards Critical Realism, which is a position born in direct challenge to Logical Positivism.

In condemning TI, I'm not more arrogant than you condemning realism.
I did not mean you adopted the LPs philosophies wholesale which is now defunct.
What I imply is you are adopting some bits of their views and their typical ideological stance in condemning others who do not agree with them, pejoratively, i.e. those they think are leaning toward the metaphysical.
The similarity is you are critical of my views [empirical realism and others] so arrogantly when your views [transcendental/material realism] are groundless.
By your own criteria, LP could not be defunct. It is still discussed and has influenced some philosophers, no less than Kantianism.

Having views which coincide with LP philosophies does not make one an endorser of the whole body of doctrines of LP. I certainly would prefer, nonetheless, endorsing LP than endorsing idealism in any of its forms.

Your ad hominems are grounded in another fallacy. To condemn opponents pejoratively would require insulting them, being deprecatory, but I have never referred to any person in such terms. I have only pointed at and condemned ideas, doctrines, in no less derogatory terms that you have used against the doctrines you oppose. I have respect for Kant, Berkeley, etc., and give them the credit they deserve in the history of philosophy, being alongside many others that, while ultimately wrong in the doctrines they promoted, nevertheless contributed in important discussions that enriched our philosophical culture. That doesn't mean one should treat their ideas with a soft glove.
Note you insist I am an idealist without qualification and my idealism is the same as Berkeley's.
Then you condemn idealists' view as nonsense [which in any case you are an empirical idealist].
That is blatantly insulting and offensive especially when I have stated many times, my idealism is that of transcendental idealism and has nothing to do with Berkeley and other sorts of idealism.

I believe it is very appropriate for me to explain [not condemn] why you are behaving [not acknowledging my claims at all] as such. I am referring to the history of the views you hold at present [material realist and analytic] and that is traceable to the logical positivists and their ideology.

I am also researching into the psychology of the logical positivists and the classical analytical philosophers. I would suggest that to you as well.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am Somehow you are very obstinate and fixated in branding me as a phenomenalist and the typical idealist when I have stated so many times I am not.
As such that is your strawman.

I have told you a "million" times I am not the typical "idealist" but rather is an empirical realist or a transcendental idealist.
You have branded yourself as a Kantian and an idealist. Kant himself has been branded a phenomenalist or at least a precursor or phenomenalism, and Husserl, the father of modern phenomenology, branded himself a transcendental idealist. You cannot get away from the phenomenalist labeling so easily, calling it a straw man, without taking distance at the same time from transcendental idealism. There may be important distinctions on the grounds that one can favor either an epistemological interpretation of Kant's work or an ontological one, as has already been discussed, but it has been precisely my intention that you settle for one perspective, which so far you have not, moving from one position to another that contradicts it, or a mixture of positions that do not correspond to the labels you assign for yourself. In the end, I really care very little about labels, which is not your case.
That is what I meant above.
You are still branding me as an idealist [unqualified] and a phenomenalist.
There are loads of texts out there that argued Kant was not a phenomenalist in the serious and ultimate sense.

Kant himself proclaimed his transcendental idealism has nothing to do with Berkeley and the other sorts of idealism. [note the bits I quoted from the Prolegomena].
Why his opponents insisted to pigeon-hole Kant's views as Berkeley was due to primal psychology like what the LPs are doing in condemning those whose philosophies are not aligned to theirs.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:06 pm
The problem with the above is that you still refuse to answer directly and without giving resolution to the conditional clause.
You say "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective".
And then when I ask what is real for Y perspective, you come back with "if X perspective, then Z is real, but X is subsumed within Y perspective".
When I ask: is Z real for Y perspective?, you repeat the same mantra.
I believe you missed my point due to your dogmatic view re transcendental realism.

Let me rephrase,
What is real-Z is only within the perspective of reality, but that is subsumed within Y.
Since there is only the perspective of reality [Kant Category of reality] there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y.
To insist there is a real-Z within perspective-Y is chasing an illusion.
From that last statement we get that humans are, ultimately, illusions.
It's not that they don't exist empirically, but don't exist at all.
And so, according to the doctrine you embrace, a transcendental realist about humans, is only chasing illusions, as there are no real, actual humans, as mind-independent objects. This is completely absurd.
Nope.
Did you not read what I stated, i.e.
" ...there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y."

You are the one who is questioning and insisting "there is a real-Z within perspective-Y" thus you are the one who would be chasing an illusion. In this case, it would be a soul that survives physical death.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am Show me evidence where did Berkeley,
"interpret the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions."

Berkeley interpreted outer-appearances are merely ideas in the mind from perceptions and they do not exist as thing-in-itself, thus moon-in-itself.
This is why to Berkeley, the moon do not exists if no one is perceiving but exists only in the mind of God.
You didn't get it. I never said Berkeley thought of "the Outer Appearance of the moon as the moon-it-itself existing independent of the human conditions."

Quite the opposite, but then I pointed at you saying that Kant's position is that
"when transcendental realists claimed, say, the moon-it-itself exists as real and is absolutely independent of the human conditions, then the transcendental realist [you] is clinging on to an illusion."

So, there must be humans cognizing the object Moon for there being such and object, and when not perceived by humans, this object ceases to be.
That is consistent with Berkeley's subjective idealism, yet you claim is Kant's TI.

You have clearly stated that both deny the Moon in itself ever existing. I have contended that this is not exactly what Kant said, but if you want to say I'm misinterpreting you on what Kant said, then you cannot keep peddling the view that for Kant the Moon cannot exist in itself as a mind-independent object.

Your reply that "things in themselves" are not to be understood as ontological things, but epistemological things, actually sends you closer again to Berkeley, as epistemological things are necessarily mind-only things. That gets you in trouble even more quickly than subjective idealism.
Re your last para, I have already stated the main difference between Kant [also mine] and Berkeley is the God factor among other differences.
Berkeley relied on God as the ultimate to leverage the existence of things and I don't.
This god factor of Berkeley's is the overriding reason why Berkeley's idealism cannot be the same as Kant's.

Both Kant and Berkeley deny the moon-it-itself i.e. the ontological moon-in-itself exists as real.

However Kant's empirical realism meant the empirical moon exists even if there are no persons to perceive it. Berkeley did not agree with this point with his Esse est percipi i.e. "To be is to be perceived.”
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by RCSaunders »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 4:36 am Note I have been arguing I am an empirical realist but that is subsumed within transcendental idealism. You need to update yourself on this argument.

Within empirical realism [which you are not] there is an independent external world out there. So my OP is addressed to people out there.
Oh, my mistake. I didn't realize this was a fiction thread.

I thought this was about reality, not some fictional existence like Malacandra. So in these make-believe worlds of "empirical reality," and "transcendental reality," there is an independent external world out there (whatever that means in those fictional worlds) but it is not an independent "reality-in-itslef," something like the sorns and hross of Malacandra.

Got it. It's been fun.

Now back to philosophy.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Advocate »

A difference that makes no difference is no difference. Reality is consensus experience because it cannot be otherwise. The ultimate nature of Actuality can only be slowly discovered and integrated.

To ourselves the proof of reality lies in our embodied experience being split between internal and external sensations. As long as things keep acting as though they're real, that's reality as we know it.

To others/in general reality is knowledge which continuously replicates, while knowledge is justified belief. Continuously replicating justified belief is the closest any person can come to Actuality and is therefore the most that Reality can mean, and we all understand it.

So long as we act as though breathing air is important, the chair is solid, etc., that's proof sufficient "for all intents and purposes". If there is some other future hypothetical knowledge that would change things, it's still indistinguishable from fiction now.

The objective in "objective reality" isn't an ultimate, such words are placeholders for the ineffable.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Note you insist I am an idealist without qualification and my idealism is the same as Berkeley's.
Then you condemn idealists' view as nonsense [which in any case you are an empirical idealist].
That is blatantly insulting and offensive especially when I have stated many times, my idealism is that of transcendental idealism and has nothing to do with Berkeley and other sorts of idealism.
So, calling you an idealist is "blatantly insulting and offensive"? Don't play the victim, especially when you didn't hold back yourself to qualify other people's stances:
[...] resorting to the unreal in la la land.

[...] superficial based on our crude fallible common sense

[...] it is only when driven by ignorance that people do not sense the human conditions are intricately part and parcel of reality.

[...] When you dogmatically cling to the existence of an independent reality, you are complicit to the above potential theistic atrocities.

[...] It is the realists who are delusional when they reify the external empirical reality as ABSOLUTELY real,

[...] A realist who is transcendental is delusional.

[...] a realist so claimed is actually a true idealist, i.e. an empirical idealist.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
I believe it is very appropriate for me to explain [not condemn] why you are behaving [not acknowledging my claims at all] as such. I am referring to the history of the views you hold at present [material realist and analytic] and that is traceable to the logical positivists and their ideology.
Material realism predates logical positivism.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am That is what I meant above.
You are still branding me as an idealist [unqualified] and a phenomenalist.
There are loads of texts out there that argued Kant was not a phenomenalist in the serious and ultimate sense.
Kant himself proclaimed his transcendental idealism has nothing to do with Berkeley and the other sorts of idealism. [note the bits I quoted from the Prolegomena].
Am I supposed to believe that because Kant or anyone else argued against their branding as phenomenalists, typical idealists, etc., this necessarily means that they successfully refuted it and we should forget about the issue and never ever mention it again? That's a sign of dogmatism right there. There are plenty of texts highlighting Kant's phenomenalist approaches and his links to Berkeley's idealism.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Conde Lucanor wrote:
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 10:39 am
I believe you missed my point due to your dogmatic view re transcendental realism.

Let me rephrase,
What is real-Z is only within the perspective of reality, but that is subsumed within Y.
Since there is only the perspective of reality [Kant Category of reality] there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y.
To insist there is a real-Z within perspective-Y is chasing an illusion.
From that last statement we get that humans are, ultimately, illusions.
It's not that they don't exist empirically, but don't exist at all.
And so, according to the doctrine you embrace, a transcendental realist about humans, is only chasing illusions, as there are no real, actual humans, as mind-independent objects. This is completely absurd.
Nope.
Did you not read what I stated, i.e.
" ...there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y."

You are the one who is questioning and insisting "there is a real-Z within perspective-Y" thus you are the one who would be chasing an illusion. In this case, it would be a soul that survives physical death.
See? Just as if we had a button for slow motion replay, you have just done exactly what I said you usually do, contradicting yourself, moving from one position to another, not settling for a definite perspective, so you can slip away from the logical consequences of your own statements. And so I got you saying that "to insist there is a real-Z within perspective-Y is chasing an illusion", but now that all the problems that this position can bring, come to the surface and you have to deal with them, you go back to saying: "oh, wait, but I did acknowledge Z being real", as if all of the sudden forgetting that this is chasing an "illusion". Epic.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Both Kant and Berkeley deny the moon-it-itself i.e. the ontological moon-in-itself exists as real.

However Kant's empirical realism meant the empirical moon exists even if there are no persons to perceive it. Berkeley did not agree with this point with his Esse est percipi i.e. "To be is to be perceived.”
Replace "an ontological moon-in-itself" with "an ontological human-in-itself" and we get that both Kant and Berkeley deny a human-in-itself i.e. an ontological human-in-itself exists as real, and that, however, Kant's empirical realism meant the empirical human exists even if there are no humans to perceive it. Berkeley did not agree with this point with his Esse est percipi i.e. "To be is to be perceived.

And you tell me idealism makes sense.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 4:05 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Note you insist I am an idealist without qualification and my idealism is the same as Berkeley's.
Then you condemn idealists' view as nonsense [which in any case you are an empirical idealist].
That is blatantly insulting and offensive especially when I have stated many times, my idealism is that of transcendental idealism and has nothing to do with Berkeley and other sorts of idealism.
So, calling you an idealist is "blatantly insulting and offensive"? Don't play the victim, especially when you didn't hold back yourself to qualify other people's stances:
[...] resorting to the unreal in la la land.

[...] superficial based on our crude fallible common sense

[...] it is only when driven by ignorance that people do not sense the human conditions are intricately part and parcel of reality.

[...] When you dogmatically cling to the existence of an independent reality, you are complicit to the above potential theistic atrocities.

[...] It is the realists who are delusional when they reify the external empirical reality as ABSOLUTELY real,

[...] A realist who is transcendental is delusional.

[...] a realist so claimed is actually a true idealist, i.e. an empirical idealist.
When I made the above claims I supported it with evidences and the onus is on the other to claim with argument they are not what they are.
In the above case, the realists did not deny they are not realists.

In my case, I deny my idealism [transcendental] similar in main principles with Berkeley's [subjective] but yet you insist on hasty generalizing me.
If you insist, show me solid proofs [not from hearsays and highly disputed claims] Kant's [also mine] idealism [transcendental] is the same as Berkeley's subjective idealism.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
I believe it is very appropriate for me to explain [not condemn] why you are behaving [not acknowledging my claims at all] as such. I am referring to the history of the views you hold at present [material realist and analytic] and that is traceable to the logical positivists and their ideology.
Material realism predates logical positivism.
I can agree with that.

Btw, "realism" is not literally realistic. The term 'realism' was merely hijacked by 'realists' first and the opposing views therefrom had to be slotted as 'anti-realists'.

"Realism" i.e. independent external reality is the default via evolution to facilitate survival at the very basic level, and anyone who comes with the opposite view automatic triggered the inherent defense mechanisms of the 'realists'; this is why realists can be so violent physically and intellectually in defending their default positions.

The anti-realist views had been raised thousands of years ago by various thinkers, e.g. Protagoras, Heraclitus, various Eastern philosophers and they were instantly mocked since their views are against the status quo.

I brought up the logical positivists since they are the quite recent and the notable intellectually violent ones in their heydays which is not too long ago.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am That is what I meant above.
You are still branding me as an idealist [unqualified] and a phenomenalist.
There are loads of texts out there that argued Kant was not a phenomenalist in the serious and ultimate sense.
Kant himself proclaimed his transcendental idealism has nothing to do with Berkeley and the other sorts of idealism. [note the bits I quoted from the Prolegomena].
Am I supposed to believe that because Kant or anyone else argued against their branding as phenomenalists, typical idealists, etc., this necessarily means that they successfully refuted it and we should forget about the issue and never ever mention it again? That's a sign of dogmatism right there. There are plenty of texts highlighting Kant's phenomenalist approaches and his links to Berkeley's idealism.
The critical point is Kant himself claimed his transcendental idealism is not the same as Berkeley's.
As I had argued Berkeley's idealism is ultimately grounded on the God factor, thus in the ultimate sense is not the same with Kant's transcendental idealism.
There are tons of texts highlighting Kant was not a phenomenalist and distinct from Berkeley's idealism. I had pointed that out many times.

I read those who claim Kant's idealism is similar to Berkeley's used terms like maybe, seem, appear to be, and the like, thus there is doubts to their claims.

Until you can show solid proofs, you should not brand me an idealist in general with association to Berkeley. I don't mind if you qualify me specifically as a "transcendental idealist".
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Conde Lucanor wrote:

From that last statement we get that humans are, ultimately, illusions.
It's not that they don't exist empirically, but don't exist at all.
And so, according to the doctrine you embrace, a transcendental realist about humans, is only chasing illusions, as there are no real, actual humans, as mind-independent objects. This is completely absurd.
Nope.
Did you not read what I stated, i.e.
" ...there is no question of what is real-Z within perspective-Y."

You are the one who is questioning and insisting "there is a real-Z within perspective-Y" thus you are the one who would be chasing an illusion. In this case, it would be a soul that survives physical death.
See? Just as if we had a button for slow motion replay, you have just done exactly what I said you usually do, contradicting yourself, moving from one position to another, not settling for a definite perspective, so you can slip away from the logical consequences of your own statements.
And so I got you saying that "to insist there is a real-Z within perspective-Y is chasing an illusion", but now that all the problems that this position can bring, come to the surface and you have to deal with them, you go back to saying: "oh, wait, but I did acknowledge Z being real", as if all of the sudden forgetting that this is chasing an "illusion". Epic.
My position is at it is has always been the same.
It is just that you are unable to understand [not agree with] my position because of your dogmatic stance with transcendental [material] realism.

Where is the contradiction?
I have brought up the point, i.e. p and not-p can exist at the same time but not within the same perspective.

It is the Kantian position,
-the empirical self - the I that Thinks exist empirically as real
-the person-in-itself - the "I AM" cannot exists as real.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Both Kant and Berkeley deny the moon-it-itself i.e. the ontological moon-in-itself exists as real.

However Kant's empirical realism meant the empirical moon exists even if there are no persons to perceive it. Berkeley did not agree with this point with his Esse est percipi i.e. "To be is to be perceived.”
Replace "an ontological moon-in-itself" with "an ontological human-in-itself" and we get that
both Kant and Berkeley deny a human-in-itself i.e. an ontological human-in-itself exists as real, and
that, however, Kant's empirical realism meant the empirical human exists even if there are no humans to perceive it. Berkeley did not agree with this point with his Esse est percipi i.e. "To be is to be perceived.

And you tell me idealism makes sense.
Why not?

1. Kant deny a human-in-itself, a permanent soul exists as real.
2. Berkeley deny a human-in-itself within human perception but it exists within God's realm.

3. Kant's empirical realism meant a human exists even if are no other humans to perceive it.
4. Berkeley believe there is only the perceptual human and the real human is within God's realm.

The above are the views of the respective philosophers.
I do not agree with Berkeley's view which is totally different from Kant's.

Btw, Kant's philosophy is not focused on 'idealism' or transcendental idealism but rather 'critical philosophy' towards the progress of humanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_philosophy
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 4:05 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
Note you insist I am an idealist without qualification and my idealism is the same as Berkeley's.
Then you condemn idealists' view as nonsense [which in any case you are an empirical idealist].
That is blatantly insulting and offensive especially when I have stated many times, my idealism is that of transcendental idealism and has nothing to do with Berkeley and other sorts of idealism.
So, calling you an idealist is "blatantly insulting and offensive"? Don't play the victim, especially when you didn't hold back yourself to qualify other people's stances:
[...] resorting to the unreal in la la land.

[...] superficial based on our crude fallible common sense

[...] it is only when driven by ignorance that people do not sense the human conditions are intricately part and parcel of reality.

[...] When you dogmatically cling to the existence of an independent reality, you are complicit to the above potential theistic atrocities.

[...] It is the realists who are delusional when they reify the external empirical reality as ABSOLUTELY real,

[...] A realist who is transcendental is delusional.

[...] a realist so claimed is actually a true idealist, i.e. an empirical idealist.
When I made the above claims I supported it with evidences and the onus is on the other to claim with argument they are not what they are.
In the above case, the realists did not deny they are not realists.
No, your opinions and qualifications of other people's stances are not evidence. The truth is you want to use a double standard: you can do sweeping unabashed remarks about the positions of others, but are not willing to stand that your ideas get bashed.

It was not the issue if realists denied their realism, but that you displayed their positions as being delusional, atrocious, ignorant, superficial, etc., while claiming that labeling you as an idealist is "blatantly insulting and offensive".
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am In my case, I deny my idealism [transcendental] similar in main principles with Berkeley's [subjective] but yet you insist on hasty generalizing me.
If you insist, show me solid proofs [not from hearsays and highly disputed claims] Kant's [also mine] idealism [transcendental] is the same as Berkeley's subjective idealism.
We are talking about interpretations of philosophical texts and doctrines, there can't be such thing as "proofs" there, just good old reasoned argumentation supported by academic references. I have shown beyond doubt that Kant's doctrine has been associated with Berkeley's, just as much as this association has been disputed. What matters at the end is that there are good reasons for making such association. The problem is your dogmatism, which needs to make sacred texts out of Kant's work, and is too concerned with the labels put to some doctrines.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 4:05 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 5:17 am
I believe it is very appropriate for me to explain [not condemn] why you are behaving [not acknowledging my claims at all] as such. I am referring to the history of the views you hold at present [material realist and analytic] and that is traceable to the logical positivists and their ideology.
Material realism predates logical positivism.
I can agree with that.

Btw, "realism" is not literally realistic. The term 'realism' was merely hijacked by 'realists' first and the opposing views therefrom had to be slotted as 'anti-realists'.

"Realism" i.e. independent external reality is the default via evolution to facilitate survival at the very basic level, and anyone who comes with the opposite view automatic triggered the inherent defense mechanisms of the 'realists'; this is why realists can be so violent physically and intellectually in defending their default positions.

The anti-realist views had been raised thousands of years ago by various thinkers, e.g. Protagoras, Heraclitus, various Eastern philosophers and they were instantly mocked since their views are against the status quo.

I brought up the logical positivists since they are the quite recent and the notable intellectually violent ones in their heydays which is not too long ago.
That is your take on realism that I simply don't share. It is pure straw man.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am The critical point is Kant himself claimed his transcendental idealism is not the same as Berkeley's.
Which goes to show that associating Kant's idealism with Berkeley's was already floating in the air of intellectual circles since the times of Kant. There was certainly a good reason for it.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am
Until you can show solid proofs, you should not brand me an idealist in general with association to Berkeley. I don't mind if you qualify me specifically as a "transcendental idealist".
You have branded yourself an idealist. Kant branded himself an idealist. Whatever the quarrels among idealists about who represents the best idealism of all, I really don't care much. Now, if you are actually much more concerned with being associated with realism, drop the idealism altogether and come over to join us.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am My position is at it is has always been the same.
It is just that you are unable to understand [not agree with] my position because of your dogmatic stance with transcendental [material] realism.

Where is the contradiction?
I have brought up the point, i.e. p and not-p can exist at the same time but not within the same perspective.

It is the Kantian position,
-the empirical self - the I that Thinks exist empirically as real
-the person-in-itself - the "I AM" cannot exists as real.
I agree your position has always been the same, that is, never settling for any, going around in circles. If I asked: "did you go to the party", you would answer: "it depends on the perspective, in one perspective I went to the party, in the other I didn't." When I ask what's the perspective that describes what actually happened, your response is ambiguous, that is, always including the two perspectives. That's because you cannot deal with the logical consequences of your answers.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am Why not?

1. Kant deny a human-in-itself, a permanent soul exists as real.
2. Berkeley deny a human-in-itself within human perception but it exists within God's realm.

3. Kant's empirical realism meant a human exists even if are no other humans to perceive it.
4. Berkeley believe there is only the perceptual human and the real human is within God's realm.
Not hard to see that idealism makes very little sense. A perspective that denies the actual existence of humans is absolutely preposterous. Now I'll wait for you to say that "in one perspective, they do exist".
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

The survival of the soul after death is the transition of one phenomenon, the soul, from one context of being to another. Considering context defines the phenomenon the change of context is the emptiness of both the soul and the context in themselves thus resulting in the aforementioned change. The soul is thus a boundary of change where it exists as a changing entity where one thing is expressed through variation. This variation is the one phenomenon, the soul, existing in new and different forms.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Somehow I felt compelled to go to this site and gain all the wisdom once and for all:

http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 1:25 am Somehow I felt compelled to go to this site and gain all the wisdom once and for all:

http://www.wisdomofchopra.com/
The unity of all being necessitates the most seemingly seperate terms as fundamentally connected. A "wisdom" generator, ie AI, would be the tying of these seemingly seperate terms together to form a statement. From the perspective of all being connected this necessitates the most absurd sayings as having fundamental meaning upon closer inspection. A rational statement can be formed together from the tying together of any words.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 1:10 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 4:05 pm
So, calling you an idealist is "blatantly insulting and offensive"? Don't play the victim, especially when you didn't hold back yourself to qualify other people's stances:
When I made the above claims I supported it with evidences and the onus is on the other to claim with argument they are not what they are.
In the above case, the realists did not deny they are not realists.
No, your opinions and qualifications of other people's stances are not evidence. The truth is you want to use a double standard: you can do sweeping unabashed remarks about the positions of others, but are not willing to stand that your ideas get bashed.

It was not the issue if realists denied their realism, but that you displayed their positions as being delusional, atrocious, ignorant, superficial, etc., while claiming that labeling you as an idealist is "blatantly insulting and offensive".
I have no issue if anyone were to bash my ideas which is something to be welcomed for any intellectual positions.

My issue here is you are branding me in the wrong category i.e.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake
Kant [me] and Berkeley are both fruits but Kant is an orange while Berkeley is an apple.

I still maintain philosophical realists [absolute external world] as ALL being delusional, and SOME are atrocious, ignorant, superficial, etc., I had provided arguments and evidences to support the above.

You insisted idealists are dealing with nonsense which I agree many are, but you have not justified why my particular transcendental idealism [TI] is nonsensical.
The only means you do so is to brand TI as the same as Berkeley's and fallacious infer TI is nonsense.
I am interested in your postulation but where is the solid justification that TI is non-sensical.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am In my case, I deny my idealism [transcendental] similar in main principles with Berkeley's [subjective] but yet you insist on hasty generalizing me.
If you insist, show me solid proofs [not from hearsays and highly disputed claims] Kant's [also mine] idealism [transcendental] is the same as Berkeley's subjective idealism.
We are talking about interpretations of philosophical texts and doctrines, there can't be such thing as "proofs" there, just good old reasoned argumentation supported by academic references.
I have shown beyond doubt that Kant's doctrine has been associated with Berkeley's, just as much as this association has been disputed.
What matters at the end is that there are good reasons for making such association.
The problem is your dogmatism, which needs to make sacred texts out of Kant's work, and is too concerned with the labels put to some doctrines.
Note the bottom line to any claim is solid sound arguments.

I have no issue if you qualify at all time, i.e. "Kant's TI had been and was/is associated [strongly rejected by Kant] with Berkeley."

If you want to take away the qualification, then show solid sound justifications.

However as I had suggested you need to understand the origin and history of why realists are so antagonistic to idealist-in-general without exceptions [without being aware they are idealists themselves].

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 4:05 pm
Material realism predates logical positivism.
I can agree with that.

Btw, "realism" is not literally realistic. The term 'realism' was merely hijacked by 'realists' first and the opposing views therefrom had to be slotted as 'anti-realists'.

"Realism" i.e. independent external reality is the default via evolution to facilitate survival at the very basic level, and anyone who comes with the opposite view automatic triggered the inherent defense mechanisms of the 'realists'; this is why realists can be so violent physically and intellectually in defending their default positions.

The anti-realist views had been raised thousands of years ago by various thinkers, e.g. Protagoras, Heraclitus, various Eastern philosophers and they were instantly mocked since their views are against the status quo.

I brought up the logical positivists since they are the quite recent and the notable intellectually violent ones in their heydays which is not too long ago.
That is your take on realism that I simply don't share. It is pure straw man.
I am very interested to know more about your 'material realism' so I don't misrepresent your actual stance. Can you give some references that represent your 'material realism'.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am The critical point is Kant himself claimed his transcendental idealism is not the same as Berkeley's.
Which goes to show that associating Kant's idealism with Berkeley's was already floating in the air of intellectual circles since the times of Kant. There was certainly a good reason for it.
As I had stated the good reason is based on psychological and ideological reasons.
I believe if Ferder in the first review had not desperately associated Kant's TI with Berkeley's, but instead published Garve's original genial review, there would be no 'Kant-Berkeley' hoo hahs from then to now.

During Kant's time there was strong opposition & antagonism between the rationalists and the empiricists tribes in their primal us versus them conflicts.
Ferder was an empiricists and Kant prior to his CPR was a dogmatic-Rationalist.
Thus whatever Kant presented the empiricists [Ferder in this case] will spontaneously and blindly and will 'draw blood' at the first opportunity. That was what Ferder did by summarizing Garve's original plain respectful review with knives.

The above is the 'good reason' why Kant's TI was 'bloodily' associated with Berkeley's the then punching bag of the empiricists and realists.

Btw, Kant TI was an attempt with the Middle-way to reconcile the chasm between the both very dogmatic rationalists' and empiricists' views.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am Until you can show solid proofs, you should not brand me an idealist in general with association to Berkeley. I don't mind if you qualify me specifically as a "transcendental idealist".
You have branded yourself an idealist. Kant branded himself an idealist. Whatever the quarrels among idealists about who represents the best idealism of all, I really don't care much. Now, if you are actually much more concerned with being associated with realism, drop the idealism altogether and come over to join us.
There seem to something wrong with you here.

Point is there is the hijacked "realism" and thus anyone on the opposite is an 'idealist'.
Don't forget the realist is also an "idealist" in another perspective.

As such to avoid the fallacy of "the categorical error" there is an intellectual protocol that one must qualify the general term.
But you seemingly is obstinate and refuse to avoid the categorical error fallacy by insisting in labelling those who do not agree with you as an unqualified-idealist.

To avoid the categorical error fallacy Kant is a transcendental idealist not just any idealist.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am My position is at it is has always been the same.
It is just that you are unable to understand [not agree with] my position because of your dogmatic stance with transcendental [material] realism.

Where is the contradiction?
I have brought up the point, i.e. p and not-p can exist at the same time but not within the same perspective.

It is the Kantian position,
-the empirical self - the I that Thinks exist empirically as real
-the person-in-itself - the "I AM" cannot exists as real.
I agree your position has always been the same, that is, never settling for any, going around in circles.
If I asked: "did you go to the party", you would answer: "it depends on the perspective, in one perspective I went to the party, in the other I didn't."
When I ask what's the perspective that describes what actually happened, your response is ambiguous, that is, always including the two perspectives.
That's because you cannot deal with the logical consequences of your answers.
You don't seem to get it.
I stated p and not-p can exists at the same time but not in a different sense.
Your party example do not work in this case.
  • Here are a couple of good examples,
    A scientists can insist a diamond gem is hard and soft at the same time.
    It is hard in the common and conventional sense.
    But that same diamond gem is soft when the scientist can use an electron gun to shoot particles through it easily.

    Any place on Earth can be East and West from a person's view point depending on which standpoint he takes.
    Japan to a person in the USA is Eastern if perceived Eastward and Western if perceived Westward.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 8:08 am Why not?

1. Kant deny a human-in-itself, a permanent soul exists as real.
2. Berkeley deny a human-in-itself within human perception but it exists within God's realm.

3. Kant's empirical realism meant a human exists even if are no other humans to perceive it.
4. Berkeley believe there is only the perceptual human and the real human is within God's realm.
Not hard to see that idealism makes very little sense.
A perspective that denies the actual existence of humans is absolutely preposterous. Now I'll wait for you to say that "in one perspective, they do exist".
There you go again, i.e. generalizing all idealism as the same.
In this case you are also condemning yourself as an idealist, i.e. an empirical idealist.

Me, as an empirical realist, claims humans exist as real people in an external world but that is subsumed within transcendental idealism i.e. cannot be absolutely independent of the human conditions [note Kant's Copernican Revolution].
This is similar to what Science is claiming, since whatever is scientific knowledge, it cannot be absolutely independent of the human conditions, since the scientific Framework and System is a human construct, thus subsumed within human conditions.

But you as an empirical idealist [aka realist-transcendental] insists humans exist as real people in an external world and are absolutely independent of the human conditions.
You are an idealist in this sense because what is real to you is assumed merely from sense-data [mental ideas] of what is the supposed human-in-itself.

Hope you get the above point that you are an empirical idealist?
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I have no issue if anyone were to bash my ideas which is something to be welcomed for any intellectual positions.

My issue here is you are branding me in the wrong category i.e.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake
Kant [me] and Berkeley are both fruits but Kant is an orange while Berkeley is an apple.
Both orange and apple are fruits, there's no category mistake in calling them fruits. Both Kant and Berkeley are self-proclaimed idealists, there's no category mistake in calling them idealists. There's absolutely no question about Kant being an idealist, not just any idealist, but one of the key figures of idealism:
Britannica - Idealism
Types of philosophical idealism

Berkeley’s idealism is called subjective idealism, because he reduced reality to spirits (his name for subjects) and to the ideas entertained by spirits. [...] The foundation for a series of more-objective idealisms was laid by the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose epochal work Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781; 2nd ed. 1787; Critique of Pure Reason) presented a formalistic or transcendental idealism, so named because Kant thought that the human self, or “transcendental ego,” constructs knowledge out of sense impressions, upon which are imposed certain universal concepts that he called categories. Three systems constructed in Germany in the early 19th century by, respectively, the moral idealist Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the aesthetic idealist Friedrich Schelling, and Hegel, all on a foundation laid by Kant, are referred to as objective idealism, in contrast to Berkeley’s subjective idealism.

[...] All those terms form backgrounds for modern Western idealisms, most of which are based either on Kant’s transcendental idealism or on those of Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel.

[...] Unwilling to accept any of the above titles, one school of modern idealists adopted the motto “Back to Kant” and were thus called Kantian idealists. Edward Caird, who imported German idealism into England, and the German proponent of the philosophy of “as if,” Hans Vaihinger, who held that much of humans’ so-called knowledge reduces to pragmatic fictions, were Kantian idealists or Kantian transcendentalists. On that tradition are based the idealisms of the austerely religious essayist Thomas Carlyle in Sartor Resartus (1833–34) and of the New England transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It must be stated, however, that Kant preferred the name critical idealism to that of transcendental idealism.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I still maintain philosophical realists [absolute external world] as ALL being delusional, and SOME are atrocious, ignorant, superficial, etc., I had provided arguments and evidences to support the above.
Your arguments fell short, but you're entitled to believe whatever pleases you about realists. Note that you did choose to launch ad hominem attacks on realists, while I only attacked the doctrines held by idealists.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am You insisted idealists are dealing with nonsense which I agree many are, but you have not justified why my particular transcendental idealism [TI] is nonsensical.
The only means you do so is to brand TI as the same as Berkeley's and fallacious infer TI is nonsense.
I am interested in your postulation but where is the solid justification that TI is non-sensical.
If I thought your views represented a perfectly faithful interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, I still would call those views nonsense, because Kant's transcendental idealism is, at the end of the day, pure nonsense. Don't get me wrong, his doctrines were revolutionary and thought-provoking, and I am with no aim to disqualify him from the position he holds in the history of philosophy, just as I have no aim to disqualify Plato, even though his doctrines are, at this time, untenable. There's something salvable in Kant's "trancendentalism" that Sellars exploited in his distinction between the manifest image and the scientific image. But in any case, even worst for you than I simply opposing transcendental idealism, I have provided enough arguments to sustain that you don't even understand Kant's work and this misinterpretation leads you to produce more nonsensical views than Kant's TI. At the end, we can forget about Kant and TI altogether and focus on the flawed doctrines you have been promoting, such as the denial of the existence of mind-independent objects, which should include, evidently, the human objects. You have not been able to solve this problem and only resort to your twisted views of Kant's TI to conceal it.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am Note the bottom line to any claim is solid sound arguments.

I have no issue if you qualify at all time, i.e. "Kant's TI had been and was/is associated [strongly rejected by Kant] with Berkeley."

If you want to take away the qualification, then show solid sound justifications.
Besides the many commentators at the times of Kant himself, which right off the bat saw the Berkeleyan connection, and motivated Kant to reply and make changes in the 2nd edition of the CPR, I have already provided modern scholarly references, such as Nicholas Stang. There is also Peter Strawson's Bounds of Sense, a well-known critique of Kant's doctrine, which summed up the Berkeleyan connection in this sentence:
Peter Strawson wrote:The doctrine that the material and the mental constituents of the natural world are alike only appearances turns out, in the end, to bear with unequal weight on bodies and states of consciousness. Kant, as transcendental idealist, is closer to Berkeley than he acknowledges.
It would not be very difficult to find other similar quotes in academic literature. The point is not whether they are right or wrong, and your response of disqualifying every critic of Kant as biased by realism, being maliciously prejudiced, or hostile, or anything else, is futile. It only needs to be a reasonable interpretation, which it obviously is. And when we add that Berkeley's idealist stance practically ends in the same conclusion as yours: "actual mind-independent things do not exist", there's little problem in associating you with him, no matter that you point at Kant's formal rejection of Berkeley. This only shows your confusion, not Kant's.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am However as I had suggested you need to understand the origin and history of why realists are so antagonistic to idealist-in-general without exceptions [without being aware they are idealists themselves].
Since idealism in all its variants has dominated philosophical discourse for centuries, calling realists and materialists (which made their relative appearance in the scene recently) as "so antagonistic to idealism", seems more like a typical reaction to intellectual progress.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I am very interested to know more about your 'material realism' so I don't misrepresent your actual stance. Can you give some references that represent your 'material realism'.
Unlike you, I don't like to fit into strictly defined categories identifiable with a particular philosopher or school of thought. I prefer to take a pluralistic approach and incorporate to my views ideas that I find intellectually fertile from many thinkers, even though I don't necessarily embrace their whole program. And I care less about the labels, than about the actual doctrines. With regards to materialism, it is hard to miss the target, unless you invoked reductionism and mechanistic materialism from the 18t century. I'm more inclined to dialectical materialism and emergentism. Along the same lines, with regards to realism I take from many sources, from Moore to Sellars, Bunge, Bueno, Sayer, Bhaskar and Meillassoux, and whoever makes sense without undermining the discoveries of science.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am There seem to something wrong with you here.

Point is there is the hijacked "realism" and thus anyone on the opposite is an 'idealist'.
Don't forget the realist is also an "idealist" in another perspective.
The dichotomy betweem realism and idealism can simply mean the dichotomy between subjectivism and objectivism which even though implies an ontology, puts most of the weight in epistemology. In that sense, realism is identified with the belief in the existence of mind-independent things, to which subjective idealism opposes. However, these mind-independent things are not necessarily thought to be physical, material things, which allows then a type of realism that is actually an objective idealism. Kant called his: critical idealism. But there's also a related dichotomy between materialism and idealism, which puts most of the weight in ontology. Idealism is then a label applied to immaterialism, and in that sense, both subjective and objective idealists are idealists, regardless of their particular stances about mind-dependency. Now, if you want to settle the dispute over whether you are an idealist or not, you tell me: are you an immaterialist or a materialist?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am As such to avoid the fallacy of "the categorical error" there is an intellectual protocol that one must qualify the general term.
But you seemingly is obstinate and refuse to avoid the categorical error fallacy by insisting in labelling those who do not agree with you as an unqualified-idealist.

To avoid the categorical error fallacy Kant is a transcendental idealist not just any idealist.
I see no such "categorical error", but I do see you very eager to take distance from the general category of idealism, something that Kant himself was not committed to do. His realism is still an idealism and he seems to be fine with that. Actually all the history of philosophy seems to be fine with that:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Idealism
4. Kant

The first major philosopher actually to call himself an idealist was Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), although as soon as he did so he labored to distinguish his position from Berkeley’s by calling his position empirical realism combined with transcendental idealism, by which he means that space and time are ineliminable properties of our experience and of things as they appear to us but not real properties of things as they are in themselves. However, since Kant neither denies the existence of things independent from our representations of them nor asserts that these things must be mental in nature, the transcendental idealist part of his position cannot be straightforwardly identified with idealism as he understood it or as we are understanding it here, namely, as the position that reality is ultimately mental in nature. While Kant thinks that he has given a sound argument for the transcendental ideality of space and time, he thinks he has given no reason at all to question the existence of things independent from our representations of them.
Highlighting the "realism" in "empirical realism" is not in any sense a useful strategy to disentangle from idealism in general.

Note also that to distinguish Kant's idealism from others, it is necessary to interpret his doctrine as "not questioning the existence of things independent from our representations of them." Interesting to note also is that this encyclopedia entry was written by Paul Guyer.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am You don't seem to get it.
I stated p and not-p can exists at the same time but not in a different sense.
Your party example do not work in this case.
  • Here are a couple of good examples,
    A scientists can insist a diamond gem is hard and soft at the same time.
    It is hard in the common and conventional sense.
    But that same diamond gem is soft when the scientist can use an electron gun to shoot particles through it easily.

    Any place on Earth can be East and West from a person's view point depending on which standpoint he takes.
    Japan to a person in the USA is Eastern if perceived Eastward and Western if perceived Westward.
You got it all wrong. One thing is that objects can exhibit, unambiguously, different relative properties according to the point of view of the observers, which are justified in the particular criteria on which the inquiries about these objects are set, and another thing that objects are both existent and non-existent. This ambiguity of being is not justified by any criteria, except the promotion of the absurd. Things actually are or they aren't, you either affirm or deny their existence, but it seems you simply cannot settle for whether things actually exist.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am Hope you get the above point that you are an empirical idealist?
As I said before, I simply don't accept Kant's classifications and reject idealism in all of its forms. I reject subjective idealism, objective idealism, immaterialism, etc. And since you are so much concerned with labels, don't forget that empirical idealism is synonymous of Berkeley's subjective idealism.
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Re: tomatoes

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A tomato is a biological fruit and a culinary vegetable. If you understand that, you understand metaphysics.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 5:14 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I have no issue if anyone were to bash my ideas which is something to be welcomed for any intellectual positions.

My issue here is you are branding me in the wrong category i.e.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake
Kant [me] and Berkeley are both fruits but Kant is an orange while Berkeley is an apple.
Both orange and apple are fruits, there's no category mistake in calling them fruits. Both Kant and Berkeley are self-proclaimed idealists, there's no category mistake in calling them idealists. There's absolutely no question about Kant being an idealist, not just any idealist, but one of the key figures of idealism:
You are still making a categorical error.
Oranges belong to the citrus genus while apples belong to the malus genus.
It is a categorical error to insist an apple is the same genus as oranges.
It is this case that you are making a categorical error by conflating Kant's and Berkeley's idealism as the same.

Have you read Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge?
If not, go as read his first page starting with
"My LORD ..."
and the last Para 156.
It is this whole context that Berkeley's idealism cannot be the same as Kant's idealism.

Both Berkeley and Kant warned their readers to read and take into account the whole book of theirs when they critique but realists prefer to cherry pick specific sections to push their ideological agenda.
I have stated this ideological agenda many times, but you don't get it.
Are you familiar with Hermeneutics?

As I had stated before, there was this group who hijacked the term 'realism' for themselves but ignorant that what they claimed is not realistic.
As such the opposing group are anti-realistic and grouped as Idealist.
In some contexts, realism is contrasted with idealism. Today it is more usually contrasted with anti-realism,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
NOT all the idealists are the same as NOT all theists are the same in terms of their different theism and religion.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I still maintain philosophical realists [absolute external world] as ALL being delusional, and SOME are atrocious, ignorant, superficial, etc., I had provided arguments and evidences to support the above.
Your arguments fell short, but you're entitled to believe whatever pleases you about realists. Note that you did choose to launch ad hominem attacks on realists, while I only attacked the doctrines held by idealists.
It is not personal but rather my critique is against the group of people who claimed to be realists on the basis of their philosophy, ideology and psychology. That is nothing wrong in exploring knowledge in these areas. Again, are you're familiar with hermeneutics?
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am You insisted idealists are dealing with nonsense which I agree many are, but you have not justified why my particular transcendental idealism [TI] is nonsensical.
The only means you do so is to brand TI as the same as Berkeley's and fallacious infer TI is nonsense.
I am interested in your postulation but where is the solid justification that TI is non-sensical.
If I thought your views represented a perfectly faithful interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, I still would call those views nonsense, because Kant's transcendental idealism is, at the end of the day, pure nonsense.
Don't get me wrong, his doctrines were revolutionary and thought-provoking, and I am with no aim to disqualify him from the position he holds in the history of philosophy, just as I have no aim to disqualify Plato, even though his doctrines are, at this time, untenable.

There's something salvable in Kant's "trancendentalism" that Sellars exploited in his distinction between the manifest image and the scientific image.

But in any case, even worst for you than I simply opposing transcendental idealism, I have provided enough arguments to sustain that you don't even understand Kant's work and this misinterpretation leads you to produce more nonsensical views than Kant's TI.
At the end, we can forget about Kant and TI altogether and focus on the flawed doctrines you have been promoting, such as the denial of the existence of mind-independent objects, which should include, evidently, the human objects.
You have not been able to solve this problem and only resort to your twisted views of Kant's TI to conceal it.
I have already presented evidence Kant's TI as central in his CPR had been and is being applied in many other fields of advance knowledge with significant contribution of humanity.
Thus how can you insist Kant's TI and his CPR is pure nonsense.

Don't be too hasty to make your judgment re the discussion
"such as the denial of the existence of mind-independent objects, which should include, evidently, the human objects."
As I claimed, you are ignorant of Kant's CPR and is being stuck in a dogmatic realist silo, thus unable to understand [not necessary agree with] my point.
Besides the many commentators at the times of Kant himself, which right off the bat saw the Berkeleyan connection, and motivated Kant to reply and make changes in the 2nd edition of the CPR, I have already provided modern scholarly references, such as Nicholas Stang. There is also Peter Strawson's Bounds of Sense, a well-known critique of Kant's doctrine, which summed up the Berkeleyan connection in this sentence:


It would not be very difficult to find other similar quotes in academic literature. The point is not whether they are right or wrong, and your response of disqualifying every critic of Kant as biased by realism, being maliciously prejudiced, or hostile, or anything else, is futile. It only needs to be a reasonable interpretation, which it obviously is. And when we add that Berkeley's idealist stance practically ends in the same conclusion as yours: "actual mind-independent things do not exist", there's little problem in associating you with him, no matter that you point at Kant's formal rejection of Berkeley. This only shows your confusion, not Kant's.
Peter Strawson was a hardcore realist who popularized the study of Kant within analytic philosophy. He was only interested the analytic elements discussed by Kant. I read Strawson only focused on the Transcendental Analytic part of the CPR and did not cover the rest of the CPR.

As with most realist and being hardcore, Strawson was stuck in his dogmatic silo and thus was unable to grasp Kant philosophy fully.
Nicholas Stang is in the same realists' shoes.
Since idealism in all its variants has dominated philosophical discourse for centuries, calling realists and materialists (which made their relative appearance in the scene recently) as "so antagonistic to idealism", seems more like a typical reaction to intellectual progress.
You got this wrong.
The Realists' [mind independent reality] view is the evolutionary default.
Any small kid will agree there is an mind independent reality out there.
Realists merely are sticking to that evolutionary default since giving that up would trigger an existential crisis [subliminally].
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 8:08 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 5:14 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I have no issue if anyone were to bash my ideas which is something to be welcomed for any intellectual positions.

My issue here is you are branding me in the wrong category i.e.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake
Kant [me] and Berkeley are both fruits but Kant is an orange while Berkeley is an apple.
Both orange and apple are fruits, there's no category mistake in calling them fruits. Both Kant and Berkeley are self-proclaimed idealists, there's no category mistake in calling them idealists. There's absolutely no question about Kant being an idealist, not just any idealist, but one of the key figures of idealism:
You are still making a categorical error.
Oranges belong to the citrus genus while apples belong to the malus genus.
It is a categorical error to insist an apple is the same genus as oranges.
It is this case that you are making a categorical error by conflating Kant's and Berkeley's idealism as the same.
That's not what the category mistake argument means at all. If you just mean that somebody has made a taxonomical error you should not name Ryle's argument and link them to its wiki page.

You should also not be in the habit of accusing others of lacking philosophical general knowledge given that the argument you just failed to grasp is one of the most famous and most easily understood in all of 20thC philosophy.
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Re: Prove An Independent Reality-in-Itself Exists

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 5:14 am
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am I am very interested to know more about your 'material realism' so I don't misrepresent your actual stance. Can you give some references that represent your 'material realism'.
Unlike you, I don't like to fit into strictly defined categories identifiable with a particular philosopher or school of thought. I prefer to take a pluralistic approach and incorporate to my views ideas that I find intellectually fertile from many thinkers, even though I don't necessarily embrace their whole program. And I care less about the labels, than about the actual doctrines.
With regards to materialism, it is hard to miss the target, unless you invoked reductionism and mechanistic materialism from the 18t century.
I'm more inclined to dialectical materialism and emergentism.
Along the same lines, with regards to realism I take from many sources, from Moore to Sellars, Bunge, Bueno, Sayer, Bhaskar and Meillassoux, and whoever makes sense without undermining the discoveries of science.
Whilst you don't like labels, it is very obvious you MUST be a philosophical realist fundamentally else you would be in one of the anti-realist camp, idealism, pragmatists, etc.
Based on what you have posted [from Moore to Sellars, Bunge, Bueno, Sayer, Bhaskar ] I don't see in what ways you would concede there is no mind independent reality and accept the opposite.
Meillassoux view is one of those on the fringes and controversial.

I presume your materialism is confined to the following typical materialism;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
or if different, how is your materialism difference from the main of the above?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am There seem to something wrong with you here.

Point is there is the hijacked "realism" and thus anyone on the opposite is an 'idealist'.
Don't forget the realist is also an "idealist" in another perspective.
The dichotomy betweem realism and idealism can simply mean the dichotomy between subjectivism and objectivism which even though implies an ontology, puts most of the weight in epistemology.
In that sense, realism is identified with the belief in the existence of mind-independent things, to which subjective idealism opposes.
However, these mind-independent things are not necessarily thought to be physical, material things, which allows then a type of realism that is actually an objective idealism.

Kant called his: critical idealism.

But there's also a related dichotomy between materialism and idealism, which puts most of the weight in ontology.
Idealism is then a label applied to immaterialism, and in that sense, both subjective and objective idealists are idealists, regardless of their particular stances about mind-dependency.
Now, if you want to settle the dispute over whether you are an idealist or not, you tell me: are you an immaterialist or a materialist?
I would prefer the following interpretation;

1. Generally, Realism is a necessary evolutionary default, i.e. reality is independent of the mind, thus culminating in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

2. Idealism is basically this, i.e. cannot be independent of the human conditions and mind;
  • In philosophy, idealism is a diverse group of metaphysical views which all assert that "reality" is in some way indistinguishable or inseparable from human perception and/or understanding, that it is in some sense mentally constructed, or that it is otherwise closely connected to ideas.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
Thus the main criteria that differentiate realism from idealism is whether one is non-mental-centered or mental centered respectively.

If your materialism is non-mental centered then you are in material-realist.
If one's view of "matter" is mental-centered, then one is a material-idealist.

From your perspective where matter is non-mental centered, i.e. independent of human condition, then in respect of your perspective, I would regard my stance as an immaterialist.
This is the same for Kant, from the realist perspective, Kant opposed materialism, thus he is a immaterialist.

However, note this;
In the CPR Kant accepted a mental-centered 'matter' [i.e. opposed to form] but reject a non-mental-centered matter-in-itself.
In this case Kant is a material-idealist [mental-centered matter].
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am As such to avoid the fallacy of "the categorical error" there is an intellectual protocol that one must qualify the general term.
But you seemingly is obstinate and refuse to avoid the categorical error fallacy by insisting in labelling those who do not agree with you as an unqualified-idealist.

To avoid the categorical error fallacy Kant is a transcendental idealist not just any idealist.
I see no such "categorical error", but I do see you very eager to take distance from the general category of idealism, something that Kant himself was not committed to do. His realism is still an idealism and he seems to be fine with that. Actually all the history of philosophy seems to be fine with that:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Idealism
4. Kant

The first major philosopher actually to call himself an idealist was Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), although as soon as he did so he labored to distinguish his position from Berkeley’s by calling his position empirical realism combined with transcendental idealism, by which he means that space and time are ineliminable properties of our experience and of things as they appear to us but not real properties of things as they are in themselves. However, since Kant neither denies the existence of things independent from our representations of them nor asserts that these things must be mental in nature, the transcendental idealist part of his position cannot be straightforwardly identified with idealism as he understood it or as we are understanding it here, namely, as the position that reality is ultimately mental in nature. While Kant thinks that he has given a sound argument for the transcendental ideality of space and time, he thinks he has given no reason at all to question the existence of things independent from our representations of them.
Highlighting the "realism" in "empirical realism" is not in any sense a useful strategy to disentangle from idealism in general.

Note also that to distinguish Kant's idealism from others, it is necessary to interpret his doctrine as "not questioning the existence of things independent from our representations of them." Interesting to note also is that this encyclopedia entry was written by Paul Guyer.
Paul Guyer??
Paul Guyer is another hardcore realist and it is "blasphemous" for him to write an article on 'idealism'.
This is the same mistake SEP committed with Nicholas Stang another realist writing on 'Transcendental Idealism'.
Surely there is a problem of confirmation bias from the two hardcore realists above.

In the full context of Berkeley's idealism, Berkeley primary purpose to justify GOD's existence. Note his last point 156 [which I asked you to read earlier] in his Treatise;
156. For, after all, what deserves the first place in our studies is the consideration of GOD and our DUTY;
which to promote, as it was the main drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless and ineffectual if, by what I have said, I cannot inspire my readers with a pious sense of the Presence of God;
and, having shewn the falseness or vanity of those barren speculations which make the chief employment of learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary truths of the Gospel, which to know and to practice is the highest perfection of human nature.
Hermeneutically, we have to take the whole context of Berkeley's philosophy into consideration and in that theological context Berkeley's idealism is totally different from Kant non-theological CPR.

To be more precise, despite rejecting immaterialism, Berkeley should be a realist ultimately since he believed there is an independent God that exists independently from his mind, i.e. non-mental-centered reality.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am You don't seem to get it.
I stated p and not-p can exists at the same time but not in a different sense.
Your party example do not work in this case.
  • Here are a couple of good examples,
    A scientists can insist a diamond gem is hard and soft at the same time.
    It is hard in the common and conventional sense.
    But that same diamond gem is soft when the scientist can use an electron gun to shoot particles through it easily.

    Any place on Earth can be East and West from a person's view point depending on which standpoint he takes.
    Japan to a person in the USA is Eastern if perceived Eastward and Western if perceived Westward.
You got it all wrong.
One thing is that objects can exhibit, unambiguously, different relative properties according to the point of view of the observers, which are justified in the particular criteria on which the inquiries about these objects are set, and another thing that objects are both existent and non-existent.
This ambiguity of being is not justified by any criteria, except the promotion of the absurd. Things actually are or they aren't, you either affirm or deny their existence, but it seems you simply cannot settle for whether things actually exist.
That is the problem.
1. You assumed objects exist from the non-mental-centered perspective.
2. I on the other hand take it that objects exist from the mental-centered perspective.
This is the point of the OP, you cannot prove 1 as true!

By the very necessary evolutionary default, Kant stated;
Kant in CPR wrote:Hitherto it has been assumed that all our Knowledge must conform to Objects.
But ALL attempts to extend our Knowledge of Objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of Concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in Failure.
CPR B xvi
so he had the insight of the more true position, i.e.
Kant in CPR wrote:We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of Metaphysics, if we suppose that Objects must conform to our Knowledge.

This would agree better with what is desired, namely, that it should be Possible to have Knowledge of Objects a priori, determining something in regard to them prior to their being Given.

We should then be proceeding precisely on the lines of Copernicus' primary Hypothesis. 1
What is a priori is adapted via evolution albeit not a default in consciousness.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 9:18 am Hope you get the above point that you are an empirical idealist?
As I said before, I simply don't accept Kant's classifications and reject idealism in all of its forms. I reject subjective idealism, objective idealism, immaterialism, etc. And since you are so much concerned with labels, don't forget that empirical idealism is synonymous of Berkeley's subjective idealism.
Why you fit the label of an idealist is because as defined above,
whatever is idealist is mental-centered.
Since you are never acquainted with the real thing out there but only is acquainted with the sense-data related to that independent external thing empirically, you are an empirical-idealist.
This is the truth, your stance is that, the only reliance upon which you have with reality are the empirical sensation, evidences, etc. in your mind, thus mental-centered.

Nope!
Equivalently, empirical idealism is apple while Berkeley's is orange.
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