The Great Whatever

Who assumes this?

If you like, SX, another way of thinking about Berkeley's arguments is to say that he does assume that these two are distinct to begin with, shows how...

I don't understand what you are saying in this post.

What does it get wrong about the realist position? I don't understand what this means. What do you mean by, a priori? Is the realist committed to the ...

What are you trying to say here?

The 'argument,' which is not an argument but a result of the realist's own claim, from which a contradiction is drawn, is that we cannot conceive of t...

OK, first of all, Brassier does not even understand that the argument is a reductio, which it is. So clearly he cannot have the form of the argument r...

No. This is not what he says the realist is committed to. He does not say they are committed to saying they can think about things without thinking ab...

Here is what I take to be the essential form of Berkeley's argument, using quotes form the text itself. It does not have the structure that Brassier a...

SX, show me how the conclusion is built into the argument. Show me the premise, and show me the conclusion, and how one is contained in the other. Wit...

Dude, seriously. What do you mean by, he does not distinguish? He comes to the conclusion that they are the same; he does not assume this from the out...

What equivocation? Where is it? Berkeley concludes that things are ideas; he does not assume this.

But this is not what Berkeley says. He does not say 'we cannot conceive of concept-independent things without conceiving them.' The point is we cannot...

How does it beg the question? Where does Berkeley assume that concepts and objects are identical? Rather, he establishes this conclusion as the result...

But this is not what is being claimed. The claim is that it is not possible to conceive of something that no one is conceiving of. But this is precise...

This isn't an assumption, though, it's the conclusion?

So, first, I'm not saying there is no such distinction. I am denying that it is the distinction in which the realist is interested. The realist is int...

What do you mean by, 'conceived ex hypothesi?' Do you mean that, when we imagine an object no one is experiencing, that object is actually experienced...

I don't know -- it's not a very smart thing to suggest. Let alone write a paper about. You can leave off this part, it doesn't add anything. Look, it'...

But at such a time, you aren't conceiving of it either. So this does not show that you can conceive of something that nobody is conceiving of.

No, Berkeley's master argument is not based on a tautology. It is a reductio of the realist's claim that he can conceive of something that no one is c...

They can't both be 'in experience' (by which I assume you mean, they are being experienced) and not be experienced. That is a contradiction you see.

Right, but if it were, you couldn't conceive of it being so, which is the point. You want to isolate the object in an alternate reality or time and sa...

But you see, you were thinking about it. So it was not unexperienced after all.

An object, according to Berkeley, is a congeries or bundle of ideas. I usually think of a 'conception' as some sort of act.

Sure, but it amounts to their inconceivability, which is the point that the realist is not willing to grant (hence why, when people see the Master Arg...

No it isn't?

I think it matters in the sense that, the assumption tends to be that what is experiential or conceptual is not real, or is somehow opposed to the rea...

Yes, Stove and Brassier's readings of Berkeley are irredeemably shallow if you take them as readings of Berkeley, but my impression here is that Berke...

I'm delighted to see an engagement with Stove's Gem and Berkeley later in the paper, which is a fun topic. SX, this is apparently where your opinion o...

Man, I'm not assuming it, I've witnessed it. Professionals in their field are often arrogant, yes. But they also spend a good portion of their lives w...

This is what they already are, at the undergraduate level. But then, I kind of think the graduate model is where it should start anyway. I really don'...

It did, though. But the problem is, I don't think it's 'leisure' at all, if by that you mean something opposed to work. The ideal academic life is one...

Well, I think there are a couple problems. The first is, the university is an old system that was built slowly and painfully. We can't expect other fo...

But then it bears asking, if such a community is something we could have, why don't we have it? Again, it's nice in theory. Universities are old insti...

Is Landru a real person?

Out of curiosity, Pneumenon, where on the internet can you do serious philosophy? The only thing I can think of is academic journals published online,...

I don't know, SX, from the descriptions you gave, anyway, all of that stuff sounds like typical, even mainstream, secular notions.

I'm reading through this very slowly, because it's pretty far outside my usual reading and interests, so here is what I understand from the programati...

Right, that's a recapitulation of the standard view I just outlined. It might be true, it might not be. It seems to me that sex has an influence that ...

But the question then is, do asexual people participate in romantic relationships in the way that sexual people do? The politically correct answer is ...

You get different numbers. It's like rape, hard to get the right stats on because no one reports or talks about it. You should be careful of Wikipedia...

I think the ideal school has people living and interacting in physical proximity. I'm old-school that way. Departments on traditional campuses are alr...

I'm looking at the course listings, and my first thought is, it's telling that these are all 'multi-interidsciplanry approaches to post-21st century r...

Sure, but cuckolding is an important structural reproductive phenomenon, and a lot of male and female reproductive identity don't make sense without i...

Right, this is why the 'beta male' or provider needs love to entice him. Women are 'mixed maters.' One class of men fathers the children, and another ...

I didn't think it was controversial that men are less attached to their children than women, on whatever metric you care to use. Or am I wrong about t...

Maybe, but they don't experience it that way in their individual psychology. Men experience it as love for the women, women as love for their children...

The world is all smoke and mirrors. If you want to understand the world, you have to understand that.

We're all disciples of Schopenhauer here, aren't we? Culture is biology, it's all will. No. If you like, there is a demand these arrangements be met, ...