Fritz Griffith wrote to Russell: >I'd like to hear just one good reason why you are dismissing these ideas. >You seem to have a lot of ignorance towards solipsism (whatever exactly that >is), yet you don't give any reasons why. As best as I can understand, you >think my ideas are crossing too far into philosophical territory, where >nothing gets accomplished. This often happens when too many assumptions are >made. I took the opposite approach, however; I made no assumptions, and >used logic and reasoning to draw my conclusions. Please point out just >where this theory goes wrong.
Idealisme is the Platonist idea that only ideas exists. There is a widespread confusion between two kind of idealism. 1) There is solipsism, sometimes called "subjective idealism". It is (as James Higgo said) the doctrine that I am dreaming, that I am the only builder of reality, and all other people are just zombie. This is a ridiculous doctrine, although it can be used to illustrate some philophical point, like the concept of zombie. It is a ridiculous doctrine, because a doctrine is something you communicate, and why should someone try to communicate things to zombie. So solipsisme (like some strong form of positivism) is self-defeating. 2) There is all form of objective idealism. Some "mind-like" predicates are taken as more fundamental than matter or physicalist predicates. It can be number (Pythagorism) mathematical structure (Platonism), or extravagant set of mortal to god-like entities (like in some Indian idealist school). Reading Griffith's post, unlike Russell, but like Higgo, I don't have concluded that Fritz Griffith was solipsist, though. It seems to me he defended a sort of objective idealism (like me BTW), even if his use of the word "memory" is a little vague. But is not the discussion-list a tool for helping us to make our ideas clearer? Concerning the (logical or physical, whatever) link between memories, observer-instant, worlds, etc. This is a very difficult matter. I say a little more in the post I will send to Jacques Mallah. Bruno
