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Reality: The world as experienced vs. the World in Itself

Brian June 30, 2017 at 10:20 15225 views 36 comments
Tonight I have been reading some F.H. Bradley and thinking about the concept of the reality of the world.

I'm trying to get clear on my thoughts about this.

The question I am raising comes down to this: The world we inhabit is the world of our experience. This is what people usually mean by "the world." But metaphysicians are always seeking a world behind the world; a reality behind the appearance.

I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

I do not deny the existence of a world-in-itself. Surely, trees, dogs, rivers, mountains, planets, solar systems and stars would exist regardless of whether humans were here to experience them.

What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced. The world-in-itself exists, but it is not "like" anything. It just is.

And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.

I take this view to be an essential tenet of traditional phenomenology. The goal of phenomenology is to describe the only world that can ever be experienced, the world-for-us. The world-in-itself, like the Kantian thing-in-itself exists - there would still be entities if there were nobody to experience them. But they wouldn't be like anything in particular, because because like something requires experience of those things. They would just be there, exist, as pure being. And there's nothing else to know about such a world physically, other than that it is coherent and exists.

The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.

I believe pragmatism and existentialism deal with this in a very distinctive and logical way. The world-in-itself exists - it just shouldn't make the guest list for the big philosophical party, because it's a basicalaly useless cognitive placeholder for us.

Thoughts on these themes?

Comments (36)

Michael June 30, 2017 at 10:26 #82433
Quoting Brian
What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced.


I don't see how that follows. Maybe it's philosophically relevant even if it cannot be experienced?
geospiza June 30, 2017 at 11:46 #82463
Reply to Brian Overall I thought what you wrote was quite persuasive. I suppose my difficulty with it can be summed up in the cliche that "no man is an island". The view you present is quite insular. By interacting with the world-in-itself (which includes, by the way, other people) we are able to modify the world-for-us in significant ways.
Cavacava June 30, 2017 at 12:00 #82471
Reply to Brian

would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.


It is not that we don't experience the world as it is in itself, we do, the problem is that we can't know or comprehend what it means for something to be as it is in itself because what we know is always and only presented by our self to our self, the world is always "the-world-for-us".



Galuchat June 30, 2017 at 12:00 #82472
Brian:I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.


Does the world-for-us (i.e., things that human beings can experience) include those things detected and measured through the use of sense-enhancing instruments (such as particle accelerators), or are those things part of the world-in-itself?
TimeLine June 30, 2017 at 12:48 #82504
Quoting Brian
And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.


The search for the nature and origin of the universe is a comparative to the very same search for meaning within ourselves, a survey of the source of why we are by examining themes such as the singularity that touches on naturalism and God-centred views of Being and Nature. Ultimately, all we are doing is epistemically exploring our subjective place within something greater than ourselves, our finite condition that removes us by reflectively practicing objective thought. Whether these mental states themselves are real, mind-independent properties that exist is something metaphysics has yet to answer and in the end, solipsism does have a sense of validity.

If there would be entities where nobody experienced them, they are nothing but objects and their condition is inherently valueless. Are you an object or is their value in your existence?
Cavacava June 30, 2017 at 13:25 #82525
Reply to Galuchat
Does the world-for-us (i.e., things that human beings can experience) include those things detected and measured through the use of sense-enhancing instruments (such as particle accelerators), or are those things part of the world-in-itself?


We detect and we measure, what ever is known is only known though thought. Does the structure of thought equal... is it the same as the structure of the world and if so then how could we ever make that determination without circularity.

Galuchat June 30, 2017 at 14:33 #82553
Cavacava:...what ever is known is only known th[r]ough thought.


What is there to think about without the ability to sense one's environment (sensation) and physiology (interoception)?
Cavacava June 30, 2017 at 14:37 #82554
Reply to Galuchat

Nothing
Galuchat June 30, 2017 at 14:44 #82556
Reply to Cavacava I agree. So whatever is known is known not only through thought, but only through experience (the product of sensation, interoception, and thought).
Cavacava June 30, 2017 at 14:51 #82558
Reply to Galuchat

That does not get you past the circularity, because it is only in thought that your distinction between thought and sense is be possible and there is no guarantee that what we sense is what there is in itself are the same. We simply cannot not have an pure objective point of view.

There is some question as to whether or not what is in itself can even be thought, let alone known.
Galuchat June 30, 2017 at 15:02 #82561
Reply to Cavacava I agree. What the OP doesn't make clear is why the study of quantum mechanics is meaningless if it is part of the world-for-us.

Brian:And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.
Brian July 01, 2017 at 10:22 #82745
Reply to Michael I don't see how, but I'd like you to elaborate on your point if you don't mind.
Brian July 01, 2017 at 10:24 #82746
Reply to Galuchat To me those would all be included in the world-for-us. We don't directly experience them via our senses but we do experience their effects on us and the world of our experience. In fact, they constitute the very world of our experience.

Brian July 01, 2017 at 10:28 #82748
For kant, things-in-themselves were independent of the wold of space and time, since space and time are mere a priori conditions of our experienced world contributed to experience by our mental faculties.

If we take this a paradigmatic case of the things-in-themselves, I wholly reject the notion. Is it possible that things exist external to space-time? Sure, as Nietzsche wrote, we can't definitely prove it. But such entities, whatever they are, or such ways of knowing entities, seem largely irrelevant to human experience to philosophical endeavor.

After the, the most we could ever say about them is that they might exist. That doesn't really add too much to the philosophical conversation IMO.
Wayfarer July 01, 2017 at 11:05 #82754
Quoting Brian
The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.


That seems very close to 'objectivism', associated with Ayn Rand.

I think a seminal text in the history of philosophy, concerning the distinction between reality and appearance, is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. I won't try and represent it here as I will presume you're familiar with it. But the point it makes is that what the ordinary person, the hoi polloi, takes to be real, are really 'shadows on the cave wall'. Because they know nothing higher and see nothing better, these denizens of the cave don't aspire to seeing the true light of the sun and the world outside their cave.

I think it is obviously a metaphor for spiritual illumination; but note that it is not simply an abstract exercise or philosophical speculation. It has a moral dimension, namely that the philosopher, the one who has ascended from the cave, realises a truth about the human condition that those in the cave cannot.

Thomas Nagel says, in his Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament, that

Plato was clearly concerned not only with the state of his soul, but also with his relation to the universe at the deepest level. Plato’s metaphysics was not intended to produce merely a detached understanding of reality. His motivation in philosophy was in part to achieve a kind of understanding that would connect him (and therefore every human being) to the whole of reality – intelligibly and if possible satisfyingly.


And I think it is the same motivation which underlies Kant, Bradley, and indeed all idealist philosophies which ultimately find their inspiration in Plato, because

It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being.


SEP entry on Schopenhauer.

The point of which is that the intention of the idealist philosophies was indeed to apprehend a reality that was of a higher nature, as it were, than the reality of the world of the senses. Of course such an attitude can and has been criticized on many grounds, but I think it's useful to recall what I see as its originating motivation.


Wayfarer July 01, 2017 at 11:08 #82755
Incidentally, the original impulse behind Kant's ding an sich was simply that we can only know things as they appear to us, not as they are in themselves. But this doesn't imply that 'things as they are in themselves' are spooky metaphysical entities. It is simply a statement that our knowledge of things is inextricably mediated by our sensory apparatus and intellectual faculties, so we see things 'as they appear' rather than as they are in themselves. It's quite a modest claim, in my view.
Galuchat July 01, 2017 at 11:19 #82756
Brian:To me those [the study of cosmology and quantum mechanics] would all be included in the world-for-us. We don't directly experience them via our senses but we do experience their effects on us and the world of our experience. In fact, they constitute the very world of our experience.


What is the difference between direct experience and indirect experience? Is reading the results of a particle accelerator experiment on a computer monitor an example of direct or indirect experience?
Janus July 01, 2017 at 11:20 #82757
The in itself is infinite and our knowing is finite. All knowing is knowing for a knower. We are finite knowers who possess a sense of the infinite, a sense of the in itself. We know the in itself as the for us. Beyond that there can be no in itself to be known, unless there be an infinite knower.
TimeLine July 01, 2017 at 11:50 #82760
Quoting Brian
For kant, things-in-themselves were independent of the wold of space and time, since space and time are mere a priori conditions of our experienced world contributed to experience by our mental faculties.


We categorise and conceptually distinguish through sensory experience within space and time where our mental state' relationship with the external world grounds our understanding. The objects within them are merely appearances that make it 'something' through the representations that we create and thus the actuality of what they are can never really be known. That is, the existence of these objects outside of our thoughts has no clear grounding and we create such meaning. His ethics becomes parallel to existential thought (particularly free-will), namely that by abandoning a naive subjectivism through objective moral rules, we are capable of universalising ethical values through reason rather than experience.

Our capacity is not merely constrained by such limitations of the abovementioned cognitive processes, but that we can transcend toward rational consistency of your reality, that you are what you do. There is an infinite totality in your existence that consists of continuously bringing yourself into being - consciousness - rather than being a passive, inert observer.
Cavacava July 01, 2017 at 12:15 #82762
Reply to John

What is this "sense of the infinite" ... a desire for immanence, intimacy with what is in-it- itself, intimacy that thought necessarily lacks, leading to alienation. Does this "sense of the infinite" express our need for the absolute, the universal, the "infinite knower" [whom we create in our own image and likeness] as a form of explanation.

Meno asked Socrates

Meno. And how will you inquire, Socrates, into that which you do not know? What will you put forth as the subject of inquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?


TimeLine July 01, 2017 at 22:08 #82836
Reply to Cavacava I believe John may perhaps be attempting to explicate the idea that only the infinite knower can possess knowledge of the infinite. I am unsure, however, how objects are infinite unless he was highlighting the platonic realm of forms, as Russell said:

if the word ‘cat’ means anything, it means something which is not this or that cat, but some kind of universal cattiness. This is not born when a particular cat is born, and does not die when it dies. In fact it has no position in space or time, it is ‘eternal’.


A universal quality that renders its own existence and this is reflected through nature.
Reformed Nihilist July 01, 2017 at 23:02 #82855
What does "the world as experienced" mean, if not making a distinction between the experience and that which is being experienced (The world )? The phrase implies a world separate of our experience.
Cavacava July 01, 2017 at 23:40 #82867
Reply to TimeLine

Hi, thanks for your comment, I am sure John will get around to saying what he means. Meanwhile, I think that the universe is finite, and that everything in it is finite, except for our imagination, the fact that we can imagine possibilities far beyond any possibility of actuality, and that this why math, aesthetics, and perhaps ethics are so useful. Even out imagination has its limits we cannot imagine self contradictory thoughts like a square circles in Euclidean geometry.

As we have discussed in the past, I have a problem posting any ontological objective point of view, because I think any such point of view is only available though thought. Russell's cat is only eternal in thought, but I don't think anyone can imagine what it means to have the view point of a thing in-itself. Kant said we can't know the in-itself but he also thought the concept could be used in thought. Others take a much stronger stance and insist that if it can't be known in principle then trying to use this concept in thinking is meaningless.



Janus July 01, 2017 at 23:50 #82870
Quoting Cavacava
What is this "sense of the infinite" ... a desire for immanence, intimacy with what is in-it- itself, intimacy that thought necessarily lacks, leading to alienation. Does this "sense of the infinite" express our need for the absolute, the universal, the "infinite knower" [whom we create in our own image and likeness] as a form of explanation.


I'm not sure if these are questions or statements Cavacava. Are you saying that thought leads to alienation?

I think the sense of the infinite is an experience which is interpreted in various ways; and it has been interpreted as a form of explanation, but I don't believe that is its only, or even primary, dimension. Do we create the 'infinite knower" in our image or does it create us in its image? That is the question! Don't be too hasty to answer it I would say.

The main point I wanted to make was that without an infinite knower the in itself cannot be like anything other than or beyond what it is like for us, or for other finite knowers. Finite knowers do not exhaustively constitute what is known; to be is not necessarily to be known. An infinite knower would exhaustively constitute what it knows, for it to be is to be known, what is known by it is brought into being by its very knowing.
WISDOMfromPO-MO July 02, 2017 at 03:36 #82888
Quoting Brian
Tonight I have been reading some F.H. Bradley and thinking about the concept of the reality of the world.

I'm trying to get clear on my thoughts about this.

The question I am raising comes down to this: The world we inhabit is the world of our experience. This is what people usually mean by "the world." But metaphysicians are always seeking a world behind the world; a reality behind the appearance.

I would differentiate these with the terms the-world-for-us and the-world-in-itself.

I do not deny the existence of a world-in-itself. Surely, trees, dogs, rivers, mountains, planets, solar systems and stars would exist regardless of whether humans were here to experience them.

What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced. The world-in-itself exists, but it is not "like" anything. It just is.

And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.

I take this view to be an essential tenet of traditional phenomenology. The goal of phenomenology is to describe the only world that can ever be experienced, the world-for-us. The world-in-itself, like the Kantian thing-in-itself exists - there would still be entities if there were nobody to experience them. But they wouldn't be like anything in particular, because because like something requires experience of those things. They would just be there, exist, as pure being. And there's nothing else to know about such a world physically, other than that it is coherent and exists.

The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.

I believe pragmatism and existentialism deal with this in a very distinctive and logical way. The world-in-itself exists - it just shouldn't make the guest list for the big philosophical party, because it's a basicalaly useless cognitive placeholder for us.

Thoughts on these themes?





It reminds me of the manifest image vs. scientific image question.
TimeLine July 02, 2017 at 11:18 #82920
Quoting Cavacava
Russell's cat is only eternal in thought, but I don't think anyone can imagine what it means to have the view point of a thing in-itself. Kant said we can't know the in-itself but he also thought the concept could be used in thought.


It is epistemic, the boundary of language that enables us to articulate our mental state within a world external to that state; we are required to universalise concepts like 'cattiness' and form preliminary ideals to counter this boundary and where all objects - namely cats - become one with the nature of cattiness, but never completely. Just as we cannot understand the concept of God and yet his omnipotence is clearly understood, we as humans become one - albeit imperfectly - with the nature of God, but never completely. As cats need certain requisites to become one with cattiness, these ideals enable us to ascertain the temperament, disposition and other duties familiar to the concept of God - the highest Form of Good - that we seek to attain, striving to perfect virtue that can reach beyond the learnings of social history and materialism. The process is indeed real and that would mean that God and cattiness is also real.
mcdoodle July 02, 2017 at 12:10 #82924
Quoting Brian
The world we inhabit is the world of our experience.


Our experience includes our *imaginative* experience. I can imagine the infinite and infinitesimal, worlds in ten or eleven dimension, a divinity made flesh then resurrected after death (I don't personally believe in that but I accept that many others imagine it so), artificial worlds of numbers, every fiction ever written, the scientific image.

I believe that I can, in these imaginings, imagine the point of view of all sorts of other points than the ones inside me, indeed I imagine inhabiting them.
Cavacava July 02, 2017 at 13:24 #82937
Reply to John

Me
What is this "sense of the infinite" ... a desire for immanence, intimacy with what is in-it- itself, intimacy that thought necessarily lacks, leading to alienation.


John:
I'm not sure if these are questions or statements Cavacava. Are you saying that thought leads to alienation?


They were rhetorical, but I think you answered the question about alienation as follows:

John:
The main point I wanted to make was that without an infinite knower the in itself cannot be like anything other than or beyond what it is like for us, or for other finite knowers.


I don't accept any "infinite knower". So based on your thought, what I experience phenomenally forecloses on any reality behind the phenomenal as being the basis of my experience. I am in this sense alienated from any reality beyond the phenomenal, which I can only experience reality as mediated through thought.

Phenomenology becomes a kind of dogmatic idealism?









Cavacava July 02, 2017 at 13:50 #82955
Reply to TimeLine

I agree to the extent that universals are required by us to know anything, but that does not make them any more than heuristic devices which enable explanations.

Just as we cannot understand the concept of God and yet his omnipotence is clearly understood, we as humans become one - albeit imperfectly - with the nature of God, but never completely. As cats need certain requisites to become one with cattiness, these ideals enable us to ascertain the temperament, disposition and other duties familiar to the concept of God - the highest Form of Good - that we seek to attain, striving to perfect virtue that can reach beyond the learnings of social history and materialism. The process is indeed real and that would mean that God and cattiness is also real.


The problem I have with your statement is that it assumes that our heuristics devices are real, and not tools of thought that we make use of in the project we call life. I think the contraries you posit are ideal and not real.

TimeLine July 02, 2017 at 14:10 #82961
Reply to Cavacava They certainly are ideals, but this draws back to the epistemic conditions of why we have them in the first place. "Cattiness" is real insofar as we presuppose its existence outside of our ideals. We cannot know that God exists, but the ideal enables us the noumenal experience of God and thus valid as a mind-independent reality, though inevitably doomed to the limitations of the contents of representations. Striving towards this ideal is a real experience.
Harry Hindu July 02, 2017 at 14:51 #82974
Quoting Brian
I do not deny the existence of a world-in-itself. Surely, trees, dogs, rivers, mountains, planets, solar systems and stars would exist regardless of whether humans were here to experience them.
What I deny is that such a world is philosophically relevant, because such a world, in principle, cannot be experienced. The world-in-itself exists, but it is not "like" anything. It just is.
But it is experienced. How can you even say those things exist if you don't experience them? You (and your experience of it) is all part of the "world-in-itself".

Quoting Brian
And everything we know about the world is the world-for-us, even when discussing cosmology or quantum mechanics. Such studies are meaningless in the face of a world wholly unrelated to our experience of it.
I wouldn't use the word, "world-for-us". There is simply the world and our experience of it. How would you explain how the two "worlds" interact? How is there a causal relationship between the world and our experience of it? Wouldn't all causal relations be part of the world as it is?


Quoting Brian
I take this view to be an essential tenet of traditional phenomenology. The goal of phenomenology is to describe the only world that can ever be experienced, the world-for-us.

You seem to be confusing terms. The world-for-us would be the experience. How can you even say an experience is happening if you aren't implying that it is an experience of something that isn't the experience? What you are arguing for is basically solipsism.

Quoting Brian
The world-in-itself, like the Kantian thing-in-itself exists - there would still be entities if there were nobody to experience them. But they wouldn't be like anything in particular, because because like something requires experience of those things. They would just be there, exist, as pure being. And there's nothing else to know about such a world physically, other than that it is coherent and exists.
Then how would you make distinctions between entities? How would there even be separate, or other entities if they didn't occupy separate points in space?

Quoting Brian
The goal of philosophy is not to see through appearance to get to the world in itself, but to immerse yourself in mastering the world-for-us, the only world we ever have any access to.
The only way to master the "world-for-us" is to establish correlations between our experience and the the "world-in-itself". Any other way makes no sense and causes confusion.


Cavacava July 02, 2017 at 15:51 #82978
Reply to TimeLine

They certainly are ideals, but this draws back to the epistemic conditions of why we have them in the first place. "Cattiness" is real insofar as we presuppose its existence outside of our ideals. We cannot know that God exists, but the ideal enables us the noumenal experience of God and thus valid as a mind-independent reality, though inevitably doomed to the limitations of the contents of representations. Striving towards this ideal is a real experience.



It sounds like reverse fetishism to me, where Ideals forcefully compel a manner of living and knowing.

You sure about "Cattiness"? :)





TimeLine July 02, 2017 at 21:12 #83046
Reply to Cavacava How else can it be? This is the very epistemic limitation of our cognitive processes.
Janus July 02, 2017 at 23:27 #83079
Quoting Cavacava
I don't accept any "infinite knower". So based on your thought, what I experience phenomenally forecloses on any reality behind the phenomenal as being the basis of my experience. I am in this sense alienated from any reality beyond the phenomenal, which I can only experience reality as mediated through thought.

Phenomenology becomes a kind of dogmatic idealism?


Perhaps it is different for different people, but what I "experience phenomenally" includes an inescapable sense of what is beyond that experience. I am led, then, to try to imagine the possibilities; it might just be a material or physical reality (materialism or physicalism) or it might be the ideas of a God or absolute spirit (idealism). I think the real difficult problem is with the coherency of the idea of it being a material reality that cannot be like anything beyond how it is experienced by sentient or sapient beings.

The idea of the material or physical seems to lose all coherency if it is not collapsed into the phenomenal; the experienced. Even the idea of things 'out there' which are currently not being experienced seems, on examination, to be unintelligible, because the idea of something being there and yet not being like anything seems absurd. What is purportedly there that is not currently there-as-experienced seems reduced to a kind of ghostly formal placeholder.

The big problem with subjective idealism as opposed to absolute idealism is that there is no explanation for how all the unconnected subject minds can constitute objects-in-common. This would seem to require a unifying (infinite) intelligence that constitutes the realm of experience for all the finite minds. Both Berkeley and Hegel had this idea, albeit in ostensibly different ways; and I always think it is somewhat ironic when Berkeley's idealism is referred to as 'subjective idealism' in contradistinction to Hegel's 'absolute idealism'.
Cavacava July 02, 2017 at 23:57 #83084
Reply to John

The big problem with subjective idealism as opposed to absolute idealism is that there is no explanation for how all the unconnected subject minds can constitute objects-in-common. This would seem to require a unifying (infinite) intelligence that constitutes the realm of experience for all the finite minds.


How about language as the glue, since thought seems to be constituted by it. Is this why Wittgenstein made language the limit of our world
Janus July 03, 2017 at 00:10 #83085
Reply to Cavacava

I don't see how language can explain the fact that people can invariably agree about minute details of any object which they are currently jointly viewing.

It can explain the fact that we can talk about those details, and agree that they are there, but it would equally explain the fact that we could talk about our disagreements if we failed to find the same details in objects.