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RussellA

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Suppose the world is deterministic. Then one's beliefs have been determined, whether one's belief is that the world is deterministic or one's belief i...
August 15, 2025 at 07:47
That relations don't really exist in the physical world. From SEP - Relations Bradley concluded that we should eliminate external relations from our o...
August 15, 2025 at 07:29
Yes, fixing one's definitions adds complexity to an already complicated topic, such as establishing the differences between being and becoming, ontolo...
August 14, 2025 at 16:08
Not an infinite regress, as we eventually arrive at the (indivisible) fundamental particles and forces. There are four fundamental interactions known ...
August 14, 2025 at 15:18
Maybe now I can finally get to see St Petersburg using my new alias.
August 14, 2025 at 14:39
In a deterministic world, looking forwards in time, the earthquake off the coast of Cotabato in 1976 determined a tsunami in the Moro Gulf. In a deter...
August 14, 2025 at 14:32
I put my hand between the white ball and the red ball. If I have free will, then I have a reason. In determinism, there is a cause. From Britannica - ...
August 14, 2025 at 08:59
Yes, Idealism is an extensive topic, as the SEP article on Idealism indicates. Heidegger has "Being-in-the-World", but this may be a similar problem w...
August 14, 2025 at 08:32
As a start, there is the SEP article on Idealism and the SEP article on Realism.
August 14, 2025 at 08:15
Words exist in a mind-independent world in two ways, in the same way that 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 exists in two ways. They exist as physical matter, whether as ...
August 14, 2025 at 08:01
Words must physically exist in some form in the physical space between where you exist and where I exist, otherwise we would not be able to exchange i...
August 13, 2025 at 13:36
It depends which line of enquiry you are considering. There are two distinct lines of enquiry, the ontology of being within a Realist framework and th...
August 13, 2025 at 13:17
It really is not necessary to simplify your ideas for me to understand, I will try to keep up. I was just wondering how we can approach the ontology o...
August 13, 2025 at 09:39
"Esse est percipi" may be translated as "to be is to be perceived". We both perceive through our sense of vision that Mary is wearing a yellow jacket....
August 13, 2025 at 08:50
A public language exists as a fact in the world, therefore the word "chair" exists as a fact in the world. The correspondence is between the concept o...
August 13, 2025 at 07:48
There are many different definitions of "truth" - see SEP - Truth In the absence of humans there would be no truth. For example, is a rock "true"? "Tr...
August 12, 2025 at 16:46
I agree, I am sure that we do. But it can never be proved that we do.
August 12, 2025 at 15:10
On the one hand we speak the common truth that "the postbox is red". But on the other hand, when we both look at this "red postbox", how do we know ou...
August 12, 2025 at 13:47
The deterministic perspective equates to my previous experiences. All things being equal, if on a snooker table I saw a white ball hit the red ball a ...
August 12, 2025 at 13:40
For Berkeley, tables and chairs exist in the world even when not observed by any human, because they exist in the mind of God. As an Indirect Realist,...
August 12, 2025 at 12:33
It may well be that the truth is simple. The problem is interpretation. I look at Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit and say "I see the truth, it is a duck". ...
August 12, 2025 at 12:05
As I understand it: For Malebranche, God controls every interaction, such as when a white snooker ball hits a red snooker ball. For Berkeley, it initi...
August 12, 2025 at 11:39
I am unclear as to the meaning of "perceive" in "esse est percipi", "to be is to be perceived". Does it mean perceive through the sense, as in "I perc...
August 12, 2025 at 08:36
It seems that way, in that for Berkeley "matter" does nothing for us. See SEP - Occasionalism Berkeley (1685-1753) may have been influenced by the Occ...
August 12, 2025 at 08:06
As I could never run a 4 minute mile because I am limited by the physicality of my body, all brains are limited by their physicality. Brains are physi...
August 12, 2025 at 07:37
How can you speculate about the ontology of being without using language or thought? The moment you speculate about the ontology of being using langua...
August 11, 2025 at 12:46
Yes, Materialism and Physicalism have other meanings as well. But specifically for Berkeley, as an Immaterialist, he does not believe in a world of ma...
August 11, 2025 at 12:34
Suppose there is an ontological "being" independent of human language or human thought. How can a human approach ontological being if they can neither...
August 11, 2025 at 12:04
Berkeley does not believe that there are material objects in the world, athough he does believe that there are physical objects in the world. From SEP...
August 11, 2025 at 11:47
I agree when you said: For Berkeley, objects exist as physical things in the world.
August 11, 2025 at 10:50
"Being" is a word in language and Being is a concept in the mind. As regards linguistic meaning of the word, the Merriam Webster Dictionary describes ...
August 11, 2025 at 10:44
There are also two meanings of "perceive". One meaning of "perceive" is something through one of the five senses, such as "I perceive a red postbox" o...
August 11, 2025 at 10:23
Consider "Socrates is a philosopher". On the one hand, "is" could be a static "being", an unchanging substance. On the other hand, "is" could be a dyn...
August 11, 2025 at 09:46
A Black Hole may emit gravitational waves, and it is these gravitational waves that we can perceive. These gravitational waves "represent" the Black H...
August 11, 2025 at 09:00
"Esse est percipi" can be translated as "to be is to be perceived”. A Black Hole causes gravitational waves. We can perceive these gravitational waves...
August 11, 2025 at 08:33
An alien may as be different to us as we are to a cat. Would a cat understand if we explained Sartre's theory of existentialism to it? Would we unders...
August 11, 2025 at 07:47
Humans cannot perceive Black Holes. They may be inferred, but they cannot be perceived in Berkeley's terms. Would it be Berkeley's position that Black...
August 10, 2025 at 12:37
At this moment in time I only know the reality that I exist within at this moment in time. I cannot know anything outside this reality because I canno...
August 09, 2025 at 09:05
Is any kind of fixity possible in language? Consider "the apple is on the table". It is true that there is fixity here. We are explicitly told that th...
August 08, 2025 at 12:10
No one can ever know if one's own reality is or is not reality itself. Mary, in the knowledge argument, lives in her black and white world. At each mo...
August 08, 2025 at 10:40
Is it like a Derain painting, which exists as shapes and colours, and where the form of the shapes and colours allows the possibility of content withi...
August 07, 2025 at 16:41
Ontology is about the nature of reality, and epistemology is about how we know the nature of reality. There is an analogy to Mary's Room, the knowledg...
August 07, 2025 at 15:56
My understanding of the definitions As an Indirect Realist, I know that I, as a human, exist and I believe that a world independent of humans exists. ...
August 07, 2025 at 12:42
As a first approximation, one could argue that thinking in the West tends more to a search for substance and in the East thinking tends more to a sear...
August 07, 2025 at 07:58
It would be silly if that is what I had said. What I actually said was "It seems that English is more extensive than Russian in that we also have a wo...
August 06, 2025 at 08:21
Though this sounds very similar to Continental Philosophy, with its emphasis on human behaviour, existentialism and psychoanalysis. I agree not exactl...
August 06, 2025 at 07:50
As regards this topic, I see things differently to you, and we are both English speakers. We don't need to speak a different language to see things di...
August 06, 2025 at 07:24
Language expresses thoughts. In an uncertain world, language mirrors this uncertainty We say "this apple is healthy" until we discover that although a...
August 05, 2025 at 12:31
Your analysis of the copula "is" has planted the seed of enquiry in my mind. You have nurtured my curiosity, and I am struggling to bring a quietude t...
August 05, 2025 at 08:55
Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations wrote about the duck-rabbit picture. I see Parmenides and see a philosopher. The next time I see Parmenid...
August 05, 2025 at 07:08