On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Roger Clough <[email protected]> wrote: > Kant's Refutation of (Problematic) Idealism > > Problematic Idealism (Berkeley's idealism, not that of Leibniz) is the > thesis that we cannot > prove that objects outside us exist. This results directly from Descartes' > proposition > that the only thing I cannot doubt is that I exist (solipsism). > > If solipsism is true, it seems to raise the problem that we cannot prove > that objects outside > us exist . But Kant refutes this thesis by his observation that we cannot > observe the > passing of time (in itself inextended or nonphysical) unless there is some > fixed inextended substrate > on which to observe the change in time. Thus there must exist a fixed (only > necessarily over a small > duration of time) nonphysical substrate to reality. A similar conclusion > can be made regarding > space.
I cannot doubt that I exist *at this moment*, but I can doubt that I existed before, or that any other moments have or will exist. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
