Dogmatic Realism
This is an outgrowth of the discussion on Marchesk's thread "What is the best realist response to this?". I’m going to play apologist for dogmatic realism just as way of clarifying my own thoughts on the matter. Feel free to play the game, or not.
The justification for idealistic claims either bottoms out in undeniable (i.e. clear and distinct, self-evident, properly basic, etc.) assumptions or they don’t. Arguing convincingly that they do is hard work, and I personally haven’t confronted such an argument. For instance, Berkeleyan idealism works out some of the consequences of Lockean epistemological assumptions about the nature of ideas, sensations, substances, primary and secondary qualities, etc. If a philosopher doesn’t like the conclusion that is reached, then he’s well within his rights to reject the assumptions that he believes led to it, and attempt to build an alternative system as he sees fit.
In other words, there’s probably an infinite number of consistent metaphysical systems that can be built by simply adding or subtracting assumptions at one’s discretion. In metaphysics, the question of whether any given system better explains the explanandum than another can only be judged by the palatability of its consequences, and that begins to seem more a matter of taste and temperament than anything else. A dogmatic realist is a realist by taste and temperament, and will simply tweak the assumptions accordingly. He’s no better or worse than the idealist who ultimately does the same.
Nothing wrong with that, right?
The justification for idealistic claims either bottoms out in undeniable (i.e. clear and distinct, self-evident, properly basic, etc.) assumptions or they don’t. Arguing convincingly that they do is hard work, and I personally haven’t confronted such an argument. For instance, Berkeleyan idealism works out some of the consequences of Lockean epistemological assumptions about the nature of ideas, sensations, substances, primary and secondary qualities, etc. If a philosopher doesn’t like the conclusion that is reached, then he’s well within his rights to reject the assumptions that he believes led to it, and attempt to build an alternative system as he sees fit.
In other words, there’s probably an infinite number of consistent metaphysical systems that can be built by simply adding or subtracting assumptions at one’s discretion. In metaphysics, the question of whether any given system better explains the explanandum than another can only be judged by the palatability of its consequences, and that begins to seem more a matter of taste and temperament than anything else. A dogmatic realist is a realist by taste and temperament, and will simply tweak the assumptions accordingly. He’s no better or worse than the idealist who ultimately does the same.
Nothing wrong with that, right?
Comments (84)
If it's just an intellectual challenge, akin to playing chess or doing crossword puzzles, then nothing wrong. But I suspect for a lot of people interested in metaphysics, there is the nagging question of whether one's preferred metaphysics is true. That eventually leads to questioning its assumptions, and taking other metaphysical systems at least a little bit more seriously.
I think that statement would make you a neutral apologist. To be a realist apologist, you'll have to make the case that realism is more successful or explains more.. or explains better... right?
What's the difference between realism and materialism, btw?
While it's true that a philosopher is always bound by the assumptions they make and the conclusions that result from them, and is not, so far as he is doing philosophy at all, simply free to hold onto premises, admit they have certain conclusions, and reject those conclusions, I don't think it amounts to taste what sorts of premises that one is willing to accept to begin with. The reason for this is that realists and idealists both have things in common they want to do justice to, otherwise they couldn't argue. And it's the fact that their varying assumptions do more or less justice to these things that make it coherent for one to accuse the other of inconsistency, not merely a difference in taste.
Roughly, the idealist is motivated by some variant of the dreaming argument to show that even the realist, on his own terms, is more convinced that he experiences than that something causes these experiences. The realist, I gather, insists that we are more sure there is something real beyond these experiences than that logic and evidence are relevant to philosophy (this may be a harsh appraisal, but from my years and years arguing about this, I think an honest one – the realist always ends up, when pressed, admitting that he does not care about the evidence, and this topic is an example of this rhetorical move).
Yeah, I mean a common refrain you’re going to hear from the dogmatic realist is that idealism collapses into solipsism when taken to its logical conclusion. Assuming that solipsism can’t be decisively refuted, that it is internally consistent, that it is consistent with everything we could possibly experience, etc., then one is simply faced with a choice that amounts to a matter of preference. So either bite the bullet and accept solipsism, or try to find an intelligible alternative.
Or so the story goes…
[quote=Mongrel]
What's the difference between realism and materialism, btw? [/quote]
Materialism – the doctrine that everything is physical or supervenes on the physical.
Realism – the doctrine that the world is as it is independently of how inquiring agents take it to be.
Realism seems broader.
NOTE: No one seems to be able to agree on what exactly the word “realism” actually means.
But I suspect for a lot of people interested in metaphysics, there is the nagging question of whether one's preferred metaphysics is true. [/quote]
The dogmatic realist believes realism is true, and will attempt to justify it when pressed. But at the end of the day he admits that no metaphysical system can be proven to certainty. If someone doesn’t want to be a realist, then they’ll inevitably find some reason not to be. The dogmatic realist thinks that if the consequences of idealism aren’t reason enough to reject it, then nothing is.
Roughly, the idealist is motivated by some variant of the dreaming argument to show that even the realist, on his own terms, is more convinced that he experiences than that something causes these experiences. [/quote]
More convinced, perhaps, but not unconvinced as a consequence. I’m more convinced that 2 + 2 = 4 than that Fermat’s Theorem has been proven, but I don’t reject the latter claim as a result.
So given my firm intuition that I find myself in a world not of my own making, I’m going to devote my efforts toward making intelligible the notion of an independent cause of my experience, since it’s my preference that such be the case anyway. I mean, why throw in the towel just because “I could be dreaming”? Amirite?
But I'd also hastily qualify this and note that taste is not the same as whether or not I prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream. In epistemology we differentiate between knowledge and opinion. I would hazard to say that as knowledge is to opinion in epistemology, taste is to preference in aesthetics (just to coin a term to refer to the ice cream example -- not sure if its the best word). And the diversity of beliefs with respect to aesthetics does not, in and of itself, make dispute somehow non-negotiable in the same way that arguing over whether vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream is non-negotiable.
People argue about aesthetics very frequently, in fact. And it's a really interesting branch of philosophy.
I don't know if I'd say that all metaphysics comes down to aesthetics -- that seems a bit of a stretch. But in many cases we are probably drawn to this or that position on the basis of some sense of taste which we gravitate towards. (and explicating that sense of taste -- or, what we might consider good taste -- would be really quite worthwhile).
If a person is just asserting they belief this or that without having any kind of an explanation, I'd think that that is dogmatism -- but not quite philosophy.
For instance, I understand realism as Dummett described it; the claim that truth is verification-transcendent (and bivalent). Theories on metaphysics effectively reduce to theories on truth. Others disagree with me on this.
You mean, by definition, a dogmatic realist expresses an irrational belief in reality because they can only take the existence of reality on faith.
It probably calls for some narrowing down, otherwise pitting this nebulous realism against a very specific sort of idealism (the consequences of which are necessarily solipsism) is kind of odd.
It seems that solipsism proposes a theory of reality exponentially more complicated than realism without providing an explanatory structure. Solipsism is forced to admit that the reality that it creates is exactly like physical reality, as surprising as physical reality, and precisely as difficult to understand as physical reality but on top of that it is created by a mind to be that way for no reason.
Solipsism (and variants) is just an indefensible over-elaboration of realism, while remaining logically consistent.
Nah, you can argue that reality and any other concept is ultimately nebulous because its impossible to know your own mind just like its impossible to see the back of your own head without a mirror.
So let's take stock:
The common thread running through many of the replies (with some exceptions) is that dogmatism errs insofar as it sacrifices "reason" at the alter of common sense, cultural prejudice, personal bias, etc.
Questions:
1. Is it ever ok to remain skeptical of an "absurd" conclusion to a clever argument even when one can't pin-point the exact flaw in the reasoning?
2. How long can one hold out in search of a rebuttal before they are transgressing the norms of rational discourse?
NOTE: "Absurd" is another one of those words that is tossed around fairly liberally but, again, no one seems to know exactly what it means. What I have in mind is this: a claim seems absurd to someone in proportion to number of that person's "core" beliefs that it contradicts.
Where I take issue with dogmatic realism, is the extent to which it really amounts to a critical philosophy at all. It seems to me to be a form of 'arguing from normality' - that the consensus reality that is adjudicated by current social mores and scientific judgement is normative with respect to philosophical claims.
But I think that the role of philosophy is intended to subvert that order, or at least the very least call it into question. Many of the seminal figures of philosophy were like that - Heraclitus, Socrates and Plato all come to mind, but there are numerous others. Remember what Socrates was sentenced to death for. They 'wonder at what we think is ordinary', what appears to be the 'common sense' view, the kinds of things that 'everyone knows is true'. I think that Kant and the later idealists also exhibited that kind of attitude, but regrettably, German idealism 'collapsed under its own weight', so to speak, leading to the ascendancy of analytical and 'ordinary language' philosophy (in the English-speaking world, anyway.) And now analytical philosophy is rather like tea and scones in the cafeteria of the LHC (where the real work is being done.)
Is part of philosophy's role also to find answers to the questions that philosophy poses? In your opinion, would you say that the defense of the accepted order is necessarily an anti-philosophical enterprise?
The role of philosophy in academia is to promote the interests of the wealthy and powerful establishment, while the role of philosophy outside of academia is promote the interests of humanity, but the two can overlap at times as happened to Socrates.
It depends on the nature of the order it's defending! The reason I advocate an idealist philosophy is because I am opposed to philosophical materialism or physicalism, or what is nowadays called naturalism (even though distinction can be made between all of them). My 'philosophical project' originated in interest in what can generally be called spiritual philosophy (even though the word 'spiritual' is not one I like much). I suppose you could say that I am a 'perennialist' - I believe that the great philosophical traditions embody a real wisdom, now generally forgotten. But I don't believe that the mainstream of the Western philosophical tradition is materialist - scientific materialism, of the type now dominant in secular academia, is a kind of parasitic development within Western philosophy. But it has such huge firepower and technological prestige that it seems impossible to argue against.
Hence my avatar!
In any case, I can identify strains of the perennial tradition in Western philosophy, and that is what I usually try and argue from, generally against what Nagel calls 'neo-darwinian materialism'.
Not only is it ok, it's what I'd expect of a rational person. :D Indeed, wouldn't it actually be kind of irrational (just in the common use of the word) if we knew someone who, upon coming across an argument they hadn't considered before, suddenly abandoned their belief just because they hadn't considered the argument before? But that's at the extreme end, which your following question seems to allude to: (since, given time, it might be irrational to hold onto belief)
This one's harder to answer for me. It's just such a big question, from my perspective.
If we're allowing a general sort of rational discourse, then I'd say that rationality is not about which propositions someone believes, but is rather defined by the process by which they got to those beliefs. As such, I don't think it would make sense to put a time limit on propositional content. It would very much depend on whether or not the person is adhering to some kind of process of thinking which is rational -- it's certainly not the case that wide agreement on a proposition is what makes a belief rational, so a person could, theoretically at least, even hold onto the belief after society has changed until they die and, as long as they are doing so by way of a rational process, the belief could still be considered rational (even if it is, in fact, false! :D )
((Also, because I'm remaining general, I'm putting to one side what that process would be. I'm just drawing the line of rationality away from believing in true propositions, and focusing on the process by which belief is arrived at))
Sure, but it's also appropriate to remain skeptical of your dogma when given a good argument to the contrary that you can't refute and that poses devastating problems for it if it holds, rather than continuing to assert it.
I mean, you can be dogmatic, but then you're just admitting you'd prefer not to do philosophy, so I don't see why you'd ever have a philosophical discussion about it. Just state your conclusion without evidence and hold to it in spite of any evidence to the contrary – that's what you're proposing, and how can any philosophical discussion challenge such a strategy? It's a core difference of goals, which is why I wonder why philosophers bother making such claims, rather than just not doing philosophy in the relevant area.
Materialists believe that only material things exist (as well as whatever structures/relations they're in).
Realism asserts that the existents in question are extra-mental/independent of mind.
You could be an anti-realist materialist if you were to think that only minds exist, or that all existents are dependent on mentality, but where you believe that nothing but minds or mind-dependent things exist.
I don't think so. An anti-realist denies that a statement of materialism can be truth-apt.
Taken in itself, the question 'is it all in my/the mind or not' (and variants thereof) is such a terrible question that it barely merits any serious discussion. If there's truth to the deflationary position, it's that trying to tackle the problem of anti/realism 'directly' is indeed a false problem; anti/realism is an answer, a result, not a problem from which answers follow.
As I just explained:.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You're not presenting an argument for why that should be the case in your view though.
Per Fine, it's a belief in a definite world structure and belief in epistemic access to this structure. Language regarding the mind-independence of worldly stuff is limited to "..to a large extent." I think Fine allows that the issue boils down to truth.
Which Fine--Arthur? Kit? And why are we going by one particular person's characterization (which I'd say is an idiosyncratic characterization)?
If 'everything is mind' (for example), then what you're really arguing that mind can account for things because mind has the kind of properties, or the kind of qualities that can make good on such an account. What matters is not 'that' it is mind, but how it 'works'. And if you can't explain that, then who cares about your position in the anti/realism debate? The same applies if you want to begin with matter, or anything else whatsoever: what matters is the function, not what you call it, which is a surface effect, a nominal non-question.
Frankly the reason that questions of anti/realism are so prevalent on boards like this is such a 'base' level question that anyone can chip in without having to be all that familiar with more interesting, more involved questions from which anti/realism flows. Insofar as there's any interest in these questions, it's because they flag deeper, underlying questions about the nature of mind, the nature of things, or even truth, if one were to follow Michael, for example. But in and of itself, it's a rather banal triviality that isn't that philosophically interesting (note that I don't say this to 'deflate' the question, but to 'inflate' it far beyond the narrow confines in which is usually resides).
Not if you're doing philosophy. If you can't pinpoint a flaw in the reasoning, then what ought follow is skepticism towards your already held conclusion. Otherwise you're just a cultist, essentially. You might as well just pick the religion that appeals to you the most and then dogmatically assert it's truth.
I agree that it doesn't make a difference what one names the "stuff" that one is talking about, but I don't buy any of the following: that in lieu of realism/antirealism being a consequence of other views, it's typically just a nominal difference; that the non-nominal difference is not (an issue of engaging in) "actual ontology"/an issue of addressing what sort of thing we're talking about (a la "what it is") or the "nature of things"; or that a stance on realism/anti-realism amounts to "really arguing for" how that stance can account for (other) things.
On the other hand, I do find it odd and frustrating that realism/anti-realism discussions under various guises (ostensible perception discussions are popular approaches lately) occupy so much real estate on boards like this, and I'd agree that it probably often indicates a relative "philosophical sophomore" status. But if I had to guess reasons for it, I'd guess a variety of them, including (a) that Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy is typically one of the first things that philosophy students (whether "formal" or self-taught) read that has "mindfnck"/pre-philosophical-paradigm-breaking qualities, (b) that those pre-philosophical-paradigm-breaking qualities make it seductive to present general anti-realism as one's view on philosophy boards, (c) that one hasn't gotten far enough along in one's philosophizing that one realizes that there's no privileged epistemic basis for general anti-realism, and (d) I think that quite a few people are rather ad hoc motivated in seeing a general anti-realism as a support for their religious views/as a counter to what they take as attacks on those religious views sourced in realism.
The tenor of a great deal of modern philosophy is antagonistic not only to religion, but to any spirituality within philosophy. The Enlightenment sought to sweep metaphysics off the table, to concentrate on the reality of 'this world', that which traditional philosophy characterised as an illusory realm.
Twilight of the Idols
I think that question has an answer, but I'll leave it at that.
Ironically, I reckon the largest impetus that fuels such debates is nothing less than the spirit of modernity itself, with it's concern over epistemic certainty and the quest for an encyclopaedic grasp of the universe. One imagines a Plato or an Aristotle scratching their head over why in the world this was a problem at all. The modern forms of the anti-realist debate - which tend to turn over the absolute triviality that is consciousness (trivial from the ancient POV anyway) - would be total, absolute anathema to them.
So despite some pretending to be defenders of some long-lost ancient knowledge in the face of the onslaught of the Enlightenment, the concern with anti-realism is exactly co-extensive with it as sheer and utter reaction: it's only with the concern over absolute certainty does mysterianism and anti-realist sentiment gain any traction whatsoever, disfiguring the history of philosophy by transposing it's thoroughly modern concerns onto it and colouring it with a reactionary and regressive nostalgia that wishes for a time that never was. Realists, who tend to be even worse in their ignorance of philosophical history, at least acknowledge the modern providence of their views.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If one doesn't have an account of individuation or ontogenesis that couples with one's stance on anti/realism, frankly, one ought to count oneself out of the debate.
Weren't there idealists and skeptics about the external world in ancient Greek, Indian and Chinese philosophy?
I don't see how the realist/anti-realist debates, or the problems of perception are new. They're rooted in very old concerns about the nature of the world, how we know about said world, and so forth.
TGW is right, concerns about the external world (or what exists) present a hard problem. One that has challenged minds, both ignorant and well read, since people starting doing philosophy.
Yeah, that's not biased towards your own background, interests and stances.
Sure, and tellingly, their views tended to be considered rather fringe, to the extent that they challenged not simply 'the external world', but philosophy as such. They generally quite self-consciously sat at the edge of what is considered philosophy, and it's not until Descartes that scepticism finds itself properly allied with 'consciousness' such that the anti/realism debate takes the form it does now. If one tracks the history of terms like appearance, phenomenon, subject, object, or intention, to take some random examples, these often have literally zero to do with our modern sense of 'appearance-for-a-consciousness-or-a-mind-or-subject' or what have you, and generally have to do with (now) obscure understandings of 'Being' for which subjectivity was a frankly trivial issue (in keeping with the Christinization of Aristotle, it is the 'soul' which takes pride of place in those debates). The entire vocabulary by which these debates are played out didn't exist, let alone the problems themselves.
Descartes pretty much fucking murdered anything interesting in philosophy by entirely revamping the scholastic philosophical horizon as part of his general Enlightenment drive, and with it came the floodgates into which anti/realism became a respectable subject of discussion. It's no surprise that along with the Enlightenment came liberal individualism (Locke), and with it, it's attendant obsessions over self-consciousness and subjectivity. Our own obsession with these questions entirely reflects this entirely modern narcissism, and is historically mediated through and through (I mean honestly, it takes an almost inhuman kind of pettiness to even entertain the question 'does the world revolve around (my) experience of it?' - even if to spend the effort answering it in the negative).
And notice too how in these debates, the 'function' of what is being disccused is so little defined that experience, sensation, perception, thought, and mind all basically become synonyms for each other despite despite almost always refering to entirely different things in any serious literature on the subject(s). Literally, no one here tends to care 'what' is it they are talking about: only that, whatever it is, it is Very Important and must be defended against the Other Thing whose functioning is also entirely undiscussed and undisclosed. And I'm somehow the one playing parlour games? Please. The stakes have never been lower than in these kinds of arguments.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Sure, if my 'background' begins with Plato's doctrine of the Forms and moves forward through the history of philosophy from there.
Both believe in the existence of that which is not experienced by their own mind.
One calls it "matter", the other calls it "mind-stuff".
******
I believe that the difference comes down to one's notion of their place in the world. A realist sees him or herself as a (small) part of a wider existence. An idealist sees his or her own existence as primary.
To the realist, we happen to the world. To the idealist, the world happens to us.
I also think this is a significant feature of the question's landscape. But isn't it that the idealist believes we shape the world by what we think? That is the issue that buried structuralism. 20th Century people had to believe that the world can be different from what it has been... that the UN can work if we just believe in it, for instance.
Blessed are we who don't fully understand why they had to have faith in that.
Which makes it difficult to explain how self-evidently true Euclidean space (as Kant thought) got overturned by General Relativity.
Special Relativity is the one that does in absolute space. Kant beat Einstein to it (so did Leibniz, btw.. but that's beside the point.)
Historical revisionism does you no credit. And it is General relativity that curves space-time to the extent that triangle (self-evidently or not) do not in general have internal angles totaling 180degrees, as demonstrated by Gauss in 1820s.
Thus Idealism is refuted.
Maybe you could help me understand your argument a little better. Kant noted the intuitiveness of Euclidean geometry. What's the next step in the argument? And what is Kant's conclusion?
We're confused about what life and consciousness are in a way that people before us just couldn't be. We do have unique challenges.
(It may not be logically prior in a strict sense, but I find that realism about abstracta, or the rejection of same, says a lot about what sort of philosopher one is, and seems to be prior in some way to this discussion. Vague, but it's a long story.)
I take it that on the account of realism, X is whatever makes up the world regardless of whether we know or perceive it. That could be ordinary objects, matter, information, math, some neutral stuff, whatever. But typically, it's the stuff of physics.
For idealism, it is either the various experiences we have (or any mind has), or the fundamental categories of thought for Kantians which structure or experiences, such as space and time.
I understand the fundamental crux of the debate to be whether man, or some kind of mind, is the measure of what exists, or whether what exists has it's own structure independent of what anyone thinks or experiences.
So for a scientific realist, The Big Bang, star formation, evolution, continental drift, etc. happened regardless of what we think about it, and it gave rise to us, incidentally. So our thinking should conform to how things went down, as best it can.
I take the debate as meaningful in the same way Meillassoux does, in that if idealism is the case, then we can't really mean that there were dinosaurs before us leading up to us. Instead we have to mean that it appears to us humans as if there were these creatures walking the world before us, and something, likely a large rock or ball of ice, killed most of them off, allowing for our small, furry ancestors to get on with it, and now we're here.
But it only seems like that to us, because we're correlated to the world or our experiences based on how we think. That sort of thing is worrisome to me. It means our best scientific theories aren't true. They only appear to be, because of whatever epistemic standards we've adopted in the current age, which cold change (see any of the many Landru posts about this in the previous forum).
What is your theory of knowledge? What is your theory of perception? What is your theory of experience? Why are you conflating these things?
So your point is that ontology is the destination, not the starting point, otherwise you end up with intractable disagreements.
Ontology, understood in this way, is definitely not the destination, provided that it's clear that I'm not talking about ontology being exhausted by the question of anti/realism, which is a tiny pond in a vast ocean of generally far more interesting philosophy. If you begin from anti/realism, nothing of the essential in ontology is touched upon.
Sure, why not? Under most circumstances, i would consider myself to be a realist. And Dogmatism is very persuasive. I could totally subscribe to a philosophy by dogs. And maybe even a dog-based spirituality. At this point, there might be little to lose! :D (j/k. sorry for the interruption. Now back to our regularly scheduled thread, already in progress... )
But questions about taking a side either way would be secondary to taking a side either way.
And while I think it's worthwhile to get into more detail about what we're talking about when we talk about thought and the like, I think it's equally worthwhile to not "play stupid" and pretend that we have no idea what we're talking about when we talk about thought.
The question of 'dogmatic realism' arises because of the influence of naturalism or natural philosophy in today's thinking. Notice that one of the guiding principles of scientific method is the exclusion of the first-person perspective, so as to arrive at what Thomas Nagel calls in his book of that name 'a view from nowhere'. Naturalism will always tend to try and treat mind as a natural object, which is what is behind a great deal of the debates between materialism and idealism. Materialism must insist that mind is a product of, or consequence of, matter - otherwise, what are they claiming? - whereas idealists will generally try and argue from the primacy of mind, via various transcendental arguments, the argument from reason, and so on.
I don't know why you keep pushing this line which is simply historically and factually incorrect. Read the Parmenides, or Aristotle's Metaphysics: in no sense is the 'first person' at all at stake in these. Hell, read wikipedia or the SEP: no one but you thinks being has anything to do with the first person. Again, this is you pushing factually incorrect agendas on the basis of shoddy scholarship and bald prejudice.
Quine: "A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo Saxon monosyllables: "What is there?? It can be answered, moreover, in a word— "Everything?—and everyone will accept this answer as true. However, this is merely to say that there is what there is..."
Heidegger: "A few examples should help. Over there, on the other side of the street, stands the high school building. A being. We can scour every side of the building from the outside, roam through the inside from basement to attic, and note everything that can be found there: hallways, stairs, classrooms, and their furnishings. Everywhere we find beings, and in a very definite order. Where now is the Being of this high school? It is, after all. The building is".
As if etymology necessarily and perpetually determines what a term refers to.
But ontology is typically a philosophical "inventory" of what exists.
Why would one categorise a building as a being? What would the German term have been? And do you think that to demolish a building is to kill it? If it is a being, then the answer would be 'yes'.
Incidentally, Heidegger is known for his neologism 'dasien', is he not?
The distinction implicit in this word, I am sure you will be obliged to agree, is an ontological one, i..e. it distinguishes the being of a human, from the existence of objects such as buildings. Does it not?
That is why I quoted the original etymology - to show the inadequacy of that definition.
Because anyone with a modicum of philosophical education doesn't equate Being with things that are alive. Cf. Aristotle:
"Substance is thought to belong most obviously to bodies; and so we say that not only animals and plants and their parts are substances, but also natural bodies such as fire and water and earth and everything of the sort, and all things that are either parts of these or composed of these (either of parts or of the whole bodies), e.g. the physical universe and its parts, stars and moon and sun. But whether these alone are substances, or there are also others, or only some of these, or others as well, or none of these but only some other things, are substances, must be considered. Some think the limits of body, i.e. surface, line, point, and unit, are substances, and more so than body or the solid..."
(And to preempt an objection, yes, Aristotle equates substance with Being: "That which is primarily, i.e. not in a qualified sense but without qualification, must be substance." (Metaphysics Bk VII).
Nothing of course, will stop you trying to define being in your own utterly idiosyncratic and historically cockeyed manner, but it'd be nice if you'd at least acknowledge the entirely eccentric nature of your understanding, rather than pass it off as anything close to resembling general knowledge.
What I said was: 'The question of 'dogmatic realism' arises because of the influence of naturalism or natural philosophy in today's thinking. Notice that one of the guiding principles of scientific method is the exclusion of the first-person perspective, so as to arrive at what Thomas Nagel calls in his book of that name 'The view from nowhere'. Naturalism will always tend to try and treat mind as a natural object, which is what is behind a great deal of the debates between materialism and idealism. Materialism must insist that mind is a product of, or consequence of, matter - otherwise, what are they claiming? - whereas idealists will generally try and argue from the primacy of mind, via various transcendental arguments, the argument from reason, and so on.'
That is not eccentric, and it is perfectly in accordance with the debate between materialism and non-materialist philosophers.
But suffice to see, I generally try and refrain from insults, sarcasm, or belittling of those whom I argue against, I hope the one day you will develop the maturity to do likewise.
My dog patrols my property. I own the property, but that is an arrangement made with other human beings. My dog knows, with a very high degree of certainty, that she is the ruler of that domain.
It sounds like you want to confine philosophy to the tertiary level discipline. You write as if someone needs to be an expert on a billion specific books, know all these esoteric definitions, as well as the history of philosophical works and authors since Plato in and out, before one even opens their mouth during a philosophical discussion. As if one needs some sort of educational qualification, or be some sort of scholar in order to even do philosophy.
This thread has made you mad.
Where else does ontology arise other than in relation to subjective experience? You might say that it arises in relation to inter-subjective experience, but you must have subjective experience before you can have inter-subjective experience, no?
I take it you are referring to being or beings as the "subject matter" of ontology. I think there have been quite a few philosophers that have equated being with experience in one way or another. The philosophers Meillassoux broadly refers to as "correlationist" purportedly hold to this equation. Meillassoux distinguishes between "weak" and "strong" correlationists, with, if memory serves (it's quite a few years since I read After Finitude) , Kant as an example of the former and Hegel of the latter.
So I can't see why you think Wayfarer's position is so eccentric and against the grain of the whole Western philosophical tradition.
Ah, OK, I think I see where the two points intersect now. It seems you were referring to the imputation of being to only those entities with "first person perspective and experience", and not to the ontological status of being in relation to experience and thought.. If that's right, then from one angle I guess I agree with you. It is quite ordinary English usage both within philosophy and without it, to refer to "sentient beings" as opposed to, presumably,non-sentient, beings. On the other hand stones, chairs, rivers and mountains are not commonly referred to as beings, so I am somewhat ambivalent on this point.
Perhaps Wayfarer is thinking along Buddhist lines, where, perhaps but I'm not sure, only sentient beings are referred to as beings. But, if this is so, then I may have to agree, it perhaps could be against the grain of Western philosophy, but I'd need to look into it more than I have time or will to do first.
? It's not inadequate if that's the most common way the term is used (for quite some time now, at least in analytic philosophy).
If you're just getting at the idea that the characterization doesn't capture historical usage and some non-analytic usage so well, that's a fair point, but we can't forget about analytic philosophy of the past 100+ years either.
I didn't see the post in question--Maybe it was a ways back? But it sounds like dukkha (I'm guessing it was him) was merely giving his own view about the preconditions of (doing) ontology. It doesn't sound like he was presenting it as a conventional view or anything like that.
On the other hand, you often seem to present your own (relatively) idiosyncratic views (relatively because you're often presenting the idiosyncratic views of interdisciplinary authors you've enjoyed) as if they are conventional views or even as if they're considered the only acceptable views, the only views that wouldn't be laughed across the street, etc ., and that is rather a fabrication.
I think it's more that he's using "being" where he means something like "qualia" (... that "quality of being that comes to rest in the sanctuary of the form" as Kierkegaard puts it.)
So being in an ontological sense, without making any commitments, is just about what fundamentally exists. Are objects like houses part of one's ontology? Not for mereological nihilists. So a building doesn't exist, ontologically speaking, for a mereological nihilist. It has no being. For an idealist, a building exists as a perception. A panpsychist, though, would say that a building is something that has it's own experiences.
But being might differ for existentialists, whose overriding philosophical concern is the nature of human life, and not what a building is.
Perhaps he is saying something like 'no being without the quality of being'? Awesome line from K, by the way!
Isn't ontology also about how what is is? Isn't it about how being is related to experience, to perceiving minds, und so weiter?
Sounds like a good sign for a protest march. Yea.. I think that line is from his journal. I don't remember now.