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Janus

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I agree with the distinction you make here, but it just boils down to the difference between the actual existence of things and our conceptions of tha...
December 06, 2024 at 05:08
This is presenting only one form of metaphysical realism. I'd rather say that the world is as it is, and how it is gives rise to our perceptions of ob...
December 06, 2024 at 03:11
We believe the theory of evolution on account of evidence not because we just "think it is true" without any grounds, or on account of principles of r...
December 06, 2024 at 02:40
Principles of reason don't exist other than as thoughts or sentences. They are merely codifications of what is the general case regarding our experien...
December 06, 2024 at 02:22
Nothing I said contradicts that. It is a story—a very well supported one. However unlikely it might be, it is not impossible that it is false. How cou...
December 05, 2024 at 22:47
This sentence contradicts itself. Describing the things we observe just is explaining how they work.
December 05, 2024 at 21:45
Evolution is a theory and as such is not a part of the physical landscape, so it belongs with reason. The correctness or incorrectness of that theory ...
December 05, 2024 at 21:33
I don't think that is the most important question in philosophy by any stretch because the simple answer is "You can't get outside of human conception...
December 05, 2024 at 21:22
The dog's behavior shows that he sees me and the ball and many other things in the environment. His behavior towards different things I see him reacti...
December 05, 2024 at 20:50
But is it not most reasonable to think they are responses (whether innate or not) perhaps to survival, or perhaps to enjoying themselves or whatever, ...
December 04, 2024 at 23:19
I agree with Aristotle that time is in one sense measurement of change (movement) and have recently said as much in this thread I think, or perhaps in...
December 04, 2024 at 21:06
How is it that you think principles of reason jeopardized by the evolutionary account? What if principles of reason are in accordance with the way the...
December 04, 2024 at 20:53
Everything about human understanding is in terms of subjects and objects. I think the human-independently real is non-dual, but that does not mean it ...
December 04, 2024 at 02:53
But in any case, our usual way of speaking about it suffices. So, pedantic concerns aside, does it really matter whether it is said that when humans d...
December 04, 2024 at 01:51
I'm not saying it is a true account of the nature of being (whatever that might mean), but rather merely, leaving aside our personal interests, a natu...
December 04, 2024 at 01:45
The simplicity of one thesis compared to another does not guarantee that the simpler is true and the more complex false.
December 04, 2024 at 00:28
Interesting, thanks. I'll have a listen and a look.
December 04, 2024 at 00:24
I tend to agree but it is a difficult thing to prove unfortunately. The idea that there was truth in the past when there could be no propositions or t...
December 04, 2024 at 00:06
What we say of the future will presumably be true or false depending on whether the state of affairs we now propose turns out to obtain. With your sta...
December 03, 2024 at 23:48
What is the difference between a representation and an appearance according to you? I didn't claim that what I said was an explanation of what MP was ...
December 03, 2024 at 23:05
I have predicated all my arguments on the condition "iff truth and falsity are properties of propositions". I haven't said that I accept that conditio...
December 03, 2024 at 22:32
I don't have time for a more detailed reply right now. You ask what characteristics make a dog chase, piss, avoid and so on. Of course we are not comp...
December 03, 2024 at 03:18
The appearnce could only resemble the thing that appears when it is not appearing if the thing that appears is an appearance when it is not appearing,...
December 03, 2024 at 02:29
Right, so he knew he had done something he shouldn't have, which was my original point. Do you think it is any different with humans? Do you think tha...
December 03, 2024 at 02:07
What could that mean? Taking sight as the primary sense involved in describing things, are you asking something like whether the things that appear to...
December 03, 2024 at 02:01
I understand what MP is saying of course. We can only speak in terms that come from and refer to our experience. To say that nebulae or dinosaurs exis...
December 03, 2024 at 00:04
After reading many thousands of your words I am still not clear what you think the point at issue is if it is not whether or not this life is all ther...
December 02, 2024 at 23:20
Yes, it all comes down to experience. The world we experience is the real world, and it is a world shared with the other animals. It is a world that e...
December 02, 2024 at 22:34
The names of things is not the issue. The issue is their existence independent of humans or any percipients. This is not to say that their microphysic...
December 02, 2024 at 22:20
'Seeming' is the essence of experience. How else could what is real and what is merely imagined be assessed. but by comparing what seems to be real to...
December 02, 2024 at 21:56
The dog sees the ball as something to chase, the doorway as something to walk through, the wall as something not to walk into, the tree as something t...
December 02, 2024 at 20:48
You may be attributing that, not me. I say they clearly see the things we call walls and trees, I'm not saying they see them as walls or trees. Right,...
December 02, 2024 at 09:37
As I said before we see cats climbing trees not brick walls, birds perching in trees, not stopping and attempting to perch in midair. We see dogs tryi...
December 02, 2024 at 03:28
Come on, this is standard science of perception. Neither science nor the realist claim that we all see things exactly the same way or that we see thin...
December 02, 2024 at 02:54
I didn't mean to say that animals have conceptual access to microphysical structures, but that we know by observing their behavior that animals have p...
December 02, 2024 at 02:40
I thought we were in agreement. It's not clear to me where you think we are still not in agreement. OK, I'll try one more time. You say the fact that ...
December 02, 2024 at 01:56
There is no point lecturing me. I have no doubt I've read more Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and Merleau Ponty than you. I think your interpretation of Kant ...
December 02, 2024 at 00:50
We have ideas of what we perceive. The things we perceive are not ideas.
December 02, 2024 at 00:02
OK cool it seems we agree. I think we and the other animals have access to the same basic structures. Why would that be? We experience matter in an al...
December 01, 2024 at 22:49
'Matter' is an idea. If it signifies anything it signifies something that is not an idea.
December 01, 2024 at 22:25
I thought you were asking me to speculate as to what the structures we perceive as objects might be. It seems animals will not conceptualize structure...
December 01, 2024 at 22:22
You are putting words in my mouth. I don't say that at all. Almost everything we know is known by direct observation and science is just an augmenting...
December 01, 2024 at 21:55
Energy is physical and is not "immaterial" but is constitutive of the material. In what way is that "deficient"?
December 01, 2024 at 21:50
What are the implications of the fact that the characteristics of the microphysical do not accord with the characteristics of the macrophysical? I thi...
December 01, 2024 at 21:13
Not a fact—a mere assumption. That people notice different things in a vast or complex environment is no valid objection. If one notices something, as...
December 01, 2024 at 20:54
Do you think his conclusion—a kind of ontological argument for the existence of God—is also feigned? Or that his skepticism regarding the authority of...
December 01, 2024 at 20:47
Right I agree but surely to be consistent Descartes must have imagined that he had grounds for skepticism regarding the existence of those other think...
December 01, 2024 at 05:53
Sure, I guess the association must be in play. I think it's the same with children learning what is expected of them and to anticipate some kind of pu...
December 01, 2024 at 05:50
A transcendental reality which us poor sods, lacking the necessary insight, could not hope to understand. :wink:
November 30, 2024 at 23:32