David, On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 1:28 PM, david <[email protected]> wrote: > dmb quoted from Stanford: > > "Anti-realists deny the world is mind-independent. Believing the > epistemological and semantic problems to be insoluble, they conclude realism > must be false." > > > > Dan said to dmb: > > Right, and so realism and idealism are seen as mutually exclusive, whereas > the MOQ unites them both... they are both correct in their own limited ways. > Good stuff, Dave... thanks! The engine sounds great. > > > > JC said to Dan: > > Idealism is realism's fierce opponent. It's not simply a matter of "mutually > exclusive" it's a matter of mutually hostile. And how the MoQ unites them... > I have no idea except that so far the interpreters of the MOQ have no real > conception of what idealism actually is. The glib answer that idealism > equates to "it's all in your head" is facile and far, far short of the actual > stance of actual idealists. In order to engage real philosophers, you have > to do some real philosophology people. > > > > dmb says: > > Hmmm. How did idealism get mixed in to the issue? It's true that idealism and > materialism are opposed to each other (and materialists are usually > realists), but the MOQ is neither of those things.
Dan: I am the one who threw idealism into the mix. And yes of course I understand the MOQ is neither. When you mentioned anti-realism I read idealism, rightly or wrongly. I know that to professional philosophers who are much more learned that I am the terms have a difference but to me they fall under the same umbrella. > >dmb: > The rivalry presented in the Stanford quote is between realism and > anti-realism, not realism and idealism. The MOQ will appear to have some > things in common with idealism because they are both rejecting materialism - > but the MOQ also rejects idealism and so the MOQ will appear to have things > in common with materialism as well. That's not as confusing as it sounds; it > just means that the MOQ is neither idealism nor materialism (which is now > known as physicalism). Dan: Or it could be seen as both idealism and materialism. > >dmb: > To simplify the story a bit, the rivalry between idealism and materialism is > an endless dispute about whether reality is fundamentally mental or > fundamentally physical - and there are many flavors of each. It's fairly easy > to see that this dispute takes place within SOM. The MOQ, by contrast, takes > the Jamesian view that reality is the immediate flux of life, is Pure > Experience. > > > "Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it logically > precedes this distinction." (LILA, 365) Dan: Exactly... and this is important to keep in mind. >dmb: > And even if idealism were relevant, there are lots of different kinds of > idealism and so we'd have to be much more specific. The kind that says "it's > all in your head" is probably best described as solipsism - or maybe > subjective idealism if you're feeling generous. Bishop Berkeley was the kind > of idealist that would say, "to be is to be perceived". Things exists only so > long as they are being perceived by a mind. Because he was a theologian, it > wasn't very hard to climb out of the absurd implications. Since we cannot > tolerate realities that blink in and out of existence depending on whether > anyone is watching or not, he brought God in to perceive all things at all > times and thereby maintain all being. (Possibly the least plausible theory I > ever heard.) Kant is a special case because he was trying to mix his idealism > with empiricism but he was also just sort of rationalizing his prior > commitments to Christianity. Hegel and the British idealist had a very > grandiose and clean sort of Absolute idealism. Dan: Well sure. Many people (old white males mostly) spent their lives mulling over ideas that many people today (young white males mostly) are still engaging in mulling over. > >dmb: > Stanford's article on Royce opens with this sentence: "Josiah Royce was the > leading American proponent of absolute > idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by G. W. F. Hegel and > F. H. Bradley) that all aspects of reality, including those we > experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in > the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness." I guess it's easy to > see that this "single all-encompassing consciousness" is the Absolute, is the > God of idealism. And these guys are all pretty religious too. (James called > them "prigs".) Royce's major works show this inclination too. They include > The Religious Aspect > of Philosophy (1885) and The > Problem of Christianity (1913). > > > Stanford mentions his rivalry with James right at the top of the article. > Because of James's influence, Royce traded in the "single all-encompassing > consciousness" for "an infinite community of minds". He trades one big mind > for countless little ones - but it's still a kind of idealism. The MOQ, by > contrast, is empirical all the way down. Dan: I agree. But what does that mean: empirical all the way down? We still dice up that empirical reality into static quality patterns. > >dmb: > "Royce's friendly but longstanding > dispute with William James, known as “The Battle of the Absolute,” > deeply influenced both philosophers' thought. In his later works, Royce > reconceived his metaphysics as an “absolute pragmatism” grounded in > semiotics. This view dispenses with the Absolute Mind of previous > idealism and instead characterizes reality as a universe of ideas or > signs which occur in a process of being interpreted by an infinite > community of minds." > > > The MOQ, by contrast, is empirical all the way down. The anti-realist > criticism of metaphysical realism cuts against the metaphysical claims of > idealism for the same reason - they both entail claims about what fundamental > reality is beyond appearances. Dan: Anti-realism: "The term was coined by Michael Dummett, who introduced it in his paper Realism to re-examine a number of classical philosophical disputes involving such doctrines as nominalism, conceptual realism, idealism and phenomenalism. The novelty of Dummett's approach consisted in seeing these disputes as analogous to the dispute between intuitionism and Platonism in the philosophy of mathematics. "According to intuitionists (anti-realists with respect to mathematical objects), the truth of a mathematical statement consists in our ability to prove it. According to platonists (realists), the truth of a statement consists in its correspondence to objective reality." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-realism] Dan comments: Now it seems to me that anti-realism has more to do with mathematics than metaphysics so I was unsure why it is being brought into the discussion. Here we have it: dmb: > But the radical empiricism and the philosophical mysticism or the MOQ both > say that we ought not talk about such things. That's why the anti-realist's > critique is so handy in explaining the MOQ. As the Stanford quote at the top > of this page tells us, anti-realists deny the world is mind-independent. Or > rather, the anti-realist says that "mind-independence" makes no sense because > the > epistemological problems that cannot be solved. They conclude > realism must be false because there is no way to gain access to any reality > except reality as it appears to us. There is no way to crawl outside of your > mind or sense organs so as to have a view of "reality" as it is in itself. Dan: I'm reproducing that quote here: "Constructive empiricism is a view which stands in contrast to the type of scientific realism that claims the following: Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. In contrast, the constructive empiricist holds that science aims at truth about observable aspects of the world, but that science does not aim at truth about unobservable aspects. Acceptance of a theory, according to constructive empiricism, correspondingly differs from acceptance of a theory on the scientific realist view: the constructive empiricist holds that as far as belief is concerned, acceptance of a scientific theory involves only the belief that the theory is empirically adequate." And your comment: dmb: In other words, scientific theories aren't True, they're convenient. Right? You see? Dan comments: So constructive empiricism holds there is no 'true' reality, is that right? > >dmb: > But the MOQ does not have this problem because the primary reality is > experience, is an empirical reality and so the appearance-reality distinction > is dissolved. Appearance is the only reality we can have. Mind and matter, > subjects and objects, are just names we give to the different parts of > experience, conceptual tools with which we habitually interpret experience. Dan: So we interpret experience using different parts of experience? That seems a little troubling to me. Maybe it is a matter of semantics but if experience is the empirical reality anything that comes after is an interpretation and so subject to cultural and personal bias. These parts of experience... are we to take them as also part of the empirical reality? Rather, I suggest (according to the MOQ) that any interpretation of experience is no longer experience, not even part of experience. It might be called a memory of experience but even that has implications that lead down a slippery slope to all the 'isms' floating about. Reality is what we make it. Isn't that right? dmb: Those ideas work, they agree with experience, help us handle experience. But it's the experience that's real, the conceptual tools are secondary things that we add. Dan: How do we know experience is real? Isn't that a secondary judgement arising after experience? You almost seem to be saying the MOQ is a type of realism here. dmb: Talking about ultimate realities beyond, behind, or transcending experience can only ever be pure speculation, most of which will never make one bit of difference to anything and none of which can ever be verified or falsified. And so it's meaningless to engage in such "metaphysical" disputes. It's as productive as counting angles on pinheads. Dan: I guess that all depends on how we define 'experience.' If we continue to use the term in conjunction with realism, anit-realism, idealism, materialism... all the other 'isms' out there, then this problem will keep arising. Thanks, Dan http://www.danglover.com Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
