1. science
2. social science
3. philosophy

Realism
Some things are independent of mind
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Aristotle’s Argument for Realism
•
If everything were mind-dependent, then, if there were no minds, there
would be nothing at all.
•
•
But there could be a universe in which life never developed.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
So, not everything is mind-dependent.
Aristotle’s Argument for Realism
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
“And, in general, if only the sensible exists, there would be nothing if
animate things were not; for there would be no faculty of sense.”
Aristotle’s Argument for Realism
•
“Now the view that neither the sensible qualities nor the sensations would exist
is doubtless true (for they are affections of the perceiver), but that the substrata
which cause the sensation should not exist even apart from sensation is
impossible.”
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Aristotle’s Argument for Realism
•
“For sensation is surely not the sensation of itself, but there is something
beyond the sensation, which must be prior to the sensation....”
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Aristotle’s Argument
• Sensations are sensations of something
• Which must be prior to and independent of
the sensation itself
• So, there are mind-independent causes of
sensations: things-in-themselves
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Magical Realism
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Argument for Idealism
•
Suppose that the world is at least in some respects independent of the
mind.
•
•
How could we know anything about it?
•
We would have no way of knowing which way the world truly is.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The world might be different, even though all our perceptions and
thoughts of it might be the same.
Skepticism —> Idealism
•
•
If the world is independent of the mind, we can’t have knowledge of it
•
Berkeley: “To be is to be perceived.”
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The only way to have knowledge of the world is to treat the world as
a mental construction
Jorge Luis Borges
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tlön: “Hume noted for all time that Berkeley's arguments
did not admit the slightest refutation nor did they cause
the slightest conviction. This dictum is entirely correct in
its application to the earth, but entirely false in Tlön. The
nations of this planet are congenitally idealist. Their
language and the derivations of their language—religion,
letters, metaphysics—all presuppose idealism. The world
for them is not a concourse of objects in space; it is a
heterogeneous series of independent acts.”
The Heresy of Materialism
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
“On Tuesday, X crosses a deserted road and loses nine
copper coins. On Thursday, Y finds in the road four
coins, somewhat rusted by Wednesday's rain. On
Friday, Z discovers three coins on the road. On Friday
morning, X finds two coins in the corridor of his
house.”
The Heresy of Materialism
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
“The heresiarch would deduce from this story the reality
— i.e., the continuity— of the nine coins which were
recovered. It is absurd (he affirmed) to imagine that four
of the coins have not existed between Tuesday and
Thursday, three between Tuesday and Friday afternoon,
two between Tuesday and Friday morning. It is logical to
think they have existed-- at least in some secret way,
hidden from the comprehension of men-- at every
moment of those three periods.”
Missing Explanation Argument
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
•
•
Realism explains our experiences
•
•
Realism explains this
Suppose everything were mind-dependent
Why are there regularities in my experiences? Why
does your experience align with mine?
Idealism has no explanation
Best Explanation Argument
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
Realism is the simplest explanation of our
experiences
•
•
Suppose the idealist is right
•
But it’s simpler to suppose they do
Suppose things don’t exist, or obey natural laws
when we aren’t looking
Missing Explanation
•
•
•
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Pragmatism: the truth is what we all eventually agree on
But why do we all eventually agree on, say, p?
The realist/correspondence theorist can say, because p is true
What can the idealist or pragmatist say?
The Realist’s Explanation
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The Realist’s Explanation
A cat!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
A cat!
The Idealist’s Explanation
A cat!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
A cat!
The Idealist’s Explanation
•
A cat!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Berkeley: The cat is an idea in the mind of God?
A cat!
The Idealist’s Explanation
•
Kant: Things-in-themselves, whatever they are?
A cat!
A cat!
?
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The Idealist’s Explanation
•
Hegel: Historically conditioned, um, ….
A cat!
A cat!
?
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The Idealist’s Explanation
•
A cat!
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Nietzsche: ???
?
A cat!
The Idealist’s Explanation
•
Solipsist: There’s really only one mind here….
A cat!
A cat!
=
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Movie Analogy
•
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Two theaters are playing the same movie!
Explanation?
Creeping Idealism
•
•
The fantasy world of Tlön begins invading reality.
•
•
Reality begins to yield.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Orbis Tertius publishes a version of the encyclopedia of Tlön that
catches the public imagination.
"The truth is that it longed to yield."
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Idealism’s Confusion
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
Russell: The idealist confuses ideas with things
—my idea of the cat with the cat
•
“And so when Berkeley says that the tree must
be in our minds if we can know it, all that he
really has a right to say is that a thought of the
tree must be in our minds. To argue that the
tree itself must be in our minds is like arguing
that a person whom we bear in mind is himself
in our minds.”
Awareness and Object
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
“Taking the word ‘idea’ in Berkeley’s sense, there
are two quite distinct things to be considered
whenever an idea is before the mind. There is on
the one hand the thing of which we are aware –
say the colour of my table – and on the other
hand the actual awareness itself, the mental act
of apprehending the thing. The mental act is
undoubtedly mental, but is there any reason to
suppose that the thing apprehended is in any
sense mental?”
Apprehension
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
“Berkeley’s view, that obviously the colour
must be in the mind, seems to depend for
its plausibility upon confusing the thing
apprehended with the act of apprehension.”
Argument for Idealism
•
•
•
•
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
We have reason to believe that something exists only if we can know it
We can know an object only by making it an object of consciousness
Any object of consciousness is conditioned by consciousness
Anything conditioned by consciousness is mind-dependent
So, we have reason to believe that a thing exists only if it is mind-dependent
The Realists’ Critique
•
Premises 3 and 4:
•
•
•
Any object of consciousness is conditioned by consciousness
Anything conditioned by consciousness is mind-dependent
Realists: I see a cat. It becomes an object of consciousness. So, the cat is
conditioned by consciousness? So, the cat is mind-dependent? That’s absurd!
The cat isn’t affected by my seeing or not seeing it.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Equivocation in Idealism
•
•
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
G. E. Moore’s “The Refutation of Idealism”
The idealists use ‘object of consciousness’ ambiguously
Actual objects (causes of perception— things-in-themselves)
vs. internal objects (effects— appearances)
Equivocation in Idealism
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
We know actual objects by representing them
as internal objects
•
The internal object is conditioned and minddependent; the actual object is neither
•
Common Sense: “There are at least two
material objects in the universe.”
Actual Objects
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
Actual objects— things-in-themselves— are not
conditioned by being known
•
But they can be known— by being represented as
internal objects, as appearances
•
Representationalism: We know things-in-themselves
by representing them to ourselves as appearances
Locke’s Philosophy of Mind
Understanding
This is a
triangle
•
Idea
Appearance
Abstraction
Perception
Thing in itself
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Idealist’s Argument Revised
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
We have reason to believe that something [an actual object] exists
only if we can know it
•
We can know an [actual] object only by making it an [internal] object
of consciousness
•
•
•
Any [internal] object of consciousness is conditioned by consciousness
•
But doesn’t mean that the actual object is mind-dependent!
Anything conditioned by consciousness is mind-dependent
So, we have reason to believe that a thing [an actual object] exists only
if there is a mind-dependent internal object.
Acquaintance
•
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
“The faculty of being acquainted with things
other than itself is the main characteristic of a
mind. Acquaintance with objects essentially
consists in a relation between the mind and
something other than the mind; it is this that
constitutes the mind’s power of knowing things.”
Acquaintance and Description
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
•
I know some things by acquaintance,
directly
•
I know of some things by virtue of
someone else’s acquaintance
•
•
I know some things by description
None limit me to the mental