phaedrus

Ender

Long time...how was the binge?

In idealism the same objects retain their properties and their fundamental relation to the mind- but the lone difference is when the perceiver is not around to observe the object in question… the properties (hardness, shapes, texture, smell, etc) remain the same in both materialism and idealism.

Remain the same? You are saying the empirical world is "common" to both materialism and idealism?

If I understood Schopenhauer right, then that lists sounds good to me. Phenomena, for Schopie, existed as an “object only for a subject.” In addition the self was a figment of the Will that had a private access to it, the most personal, essential aspect of ourselves. Thus the body is objectified will as well as phenomenal/empirical. But in order to maintain his idealism, Schopehanuer says the showcase of his metaphysics Will is the only real thing, while everything else is merely a Polaroid of the original.

Well then everything becomes transcendental then even if schopie says there is an empirical reality.

That’s a linguistic analysis of Kant completely removed from the epistemological tradition. Fries’ methodology reflects that fact with questioning the logical consistence of Kantian epistemology by adopting a certain austere & fixed definitions of transcendental and idealism. One may ask whether Kant held the same principle Fries seems to employ.

But one needs to be sure of what the words represent if there is to be complete understanding? Or else anyone can hide in the obscurity of semantics...

Regarding your remaining points on this particular issue, could you elaborate as to how transcendental idealism and empirical realism go hand in hand or complement each other opening a window of understanding of the world we live in?

Well it doesn’t have to be a native eastern guy, if that’s any help? One of the reasons I got excited about Schopenhauer is cuz of his position in western thought as the only truly first rate thinker who was well-versed in eastern thought, that coming after he formulated his magnus opus in his mid twenties. He wrote that “in 1814 by the age of my 27th year all the dogmas of my system even the subordinate ones were established”

Not really, my readings into eastern philosophy have come from various sources/essays most of it from a friend who is currently on sabbatical in the amazon jungles ...if we are talking about books...there is a book called philosophies of india by Heinrich Zimmer which i liked. There should enough books as such...

Well yes, I was thinking dialectics in Hegel’s context of historical progress. Didn’t care much for Socrates’ version of it. Would either one be too western style, cuz it imports a certain rational purpose for the eastern thinkers? a little crossover never hurts!

Umm i think the ancient civilzations of the east in the pursuit of "money" have adapated remarkably to the western thought systems (and excelled in fact), but at the heart everything is still just sansara or balance or whatever. Dialectics existed in the ancient times as well, but didnt prove to be that popular given the human beings liking for myth

this smacks nothing more than an ideological massacre, a subversion. Perhaps a marginalization is in effect! Why even try and establish one single ideology as the be-all end-all and consequently elevate it to dogmatism? Sure beats watching the Lake Show stumble about like drunken bums in a two-game losing streak tho'.

Well i would like to think philosophy in the east is rebuilding itself in a new form, these folks have the advantage of being grounded in their ancient philosophies and at the same time being well-versed in the western version as well. People here dont really have to land up at a philosophical course to learn...the ancients have made sure most of the philosophy is distilled through religion in the form of myths and the zillion gods. They have survived centuries by absorbing different cultures and races, they changed with time shedding some of the dogmas which crept into the system as is the case with any thought system, but how much ever they change the core will be intact i presume.

I guess they will take the best out of both systems and create a personalised version which doesnt draw from a book or tradition but builds on the past by learning through constructive interaction with the present which is illuminated by the future....(that was a complex sentence right?)


JP

Ender

Refreshing. I feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle the 2nd half of the semester.

Correct! A good example of empiricism as idealism is Berkeleyanism. Feuerbach does a good job at rendering empiricism as materialism (for the 20th century version try any logical positivist). Idealism does not deny the "realness" of the objects (that they have properties) but that any attempt to conceive of the objects sans sensory perception (properties) violates the principle of significance, and presents the limits of human epistemology whereas materialists denies that the mind has any ability to shape or impose limits upon reality or the experience it receives and that "properties" are the be-all and end-all about objects of perception.

Most professional philosophers misconstrue idealism as "everything exists in a mind" or "existence is mental." Kant and Schopenhauer believed that reality sans the superfluity of our contingent and transient experiences exists in itself independent of minds and perceptions or experiences. They argue that if reality were entirely perception then it would be possible to encompass it exhaustively in perception. Transcendental idealism's beef against the fundamental postulate of the common sense view which persuades us the world as we know is the world in itself.

The commonsense realist says there is an independent material world to which our perceptions and conceptions corresponds to. Berkeley says nope! There are only our and God?s perceptions and conceptions (God perceives differently from finite spirits' ideas, eh). Kant and Schopenhauer both scoff mightily and said that our perceptions cannot be all there is, nor can it be "like" what exists in addition to them, so what else there is cannot consists of an independently existing world which corresponds to them. Since perceptions and conceptions are the limits of what we can envisage, we are unable to form any notion of what there is besides.

While it is true that transcendental idealism incorporates the common sense view of the world it insists on what is actually a tautology: "our whole conception of the world is in mind-dependent categories which could not possibly apply to anything independent of awareness." The empiricist reads this as "nothing has any existence independently of our minds."

At the fundamental level, yes. Schopenhauer adopted Kantian premises and worked out a coherent and diligent metaphysics.

The accuracy of representation smacks of correspondence theory of truth ;-) after 200 years empiricists still assume that reality must correspond to our conception of it. You are aware of the argument of illusion? Calling it semantics is equally as excusable as calling the differences with the heliocentric theory and the old Ptolemic worldview a matter of semantics.

In my estimation empiricists have not progressed beyond Hume and in a certain point of view Kant?s epistemology evades or corrects the skepticism of Hume?s epistemology. Otherwise a return to transcendental realism is a regression. Schopenhauer said this in the WWR, ii.7: "in spite of all that may be said, nothing is so persistently and consistently misunderstood as idealism, since it is interpreted as meaning that the empirical reality of the external world is denied. On this rests the constant return of the appeal to common sense, which appears in many different turns and guises..." I think what the transcendental idealist should tell the empiricist that none of his experience is doubted or denied. The only thing the TI denies is the validity of the inference the empiricist experiences to what he doesn't experience, what he could never experience. Most modern day analytic thinkers applaud Kant's "principle of significance" but fail to commend on his efforts of demonstrating the vacuity of the concept of independently existing things. TI, not empiricism has the benefit of starting from immediate experience and proceeds on only justifiable steps. Despite its name, empiricism does neither of these things- but start from an assumption that it cannot validate. Most of the problems of empiricism stem from the fact it cannot justify what it presupposes. The greatest error of empiricism is that it mistakes an epistemology for ontology by ascribing sense-dependent or mind-dependent properties to existing independent things.

I could find a good English translation of whichever's the hot shit down there. I need leads my good man!

I remember having a rip-roaring time with this witless chap named Vitae six months ago about balance of "comscience" and compassion
Why would dialectics fail to be popular given man?s proclivity for mythology? Isn't it possible to cloack dialectics with the proper amount of rhetoric for the masses?

So you disagree with the writer of that article? That his rendition of chicken little is half-baked?

~Theothanatologist~

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>

phaedrus

Ender

A good example of empiricism as idealism is Berkeleyanism. Feuerbach does a good job at rendering empiricism as materialism (for the 20th century version try any logical positivist). Idealism does not deny the "realness" of the objects (that they have properties) but that any attempt to conceive of the objects sans sensory perception (properties) violates the principle of significance, and presents the limits of human epistemology whereas materialists denies that the mind has any ability to shape or impose limits upon reality or the experience it receives and that "properties" are the be-all and end-all about objects of perception.

But the source of the empirical is transcendental in the world of idealism while in materialism the source of the objects and our interactions/perceptions with/about them are a grounded on something material. So while idealism might agree to the existence of an empirical world, the bottomline is everything is transcendental for them. That makes it different right?

At the fundamental level, yes. Schopenhauer adopted Kantian premises and worked out a coherent and diligent metaphysics.

Why work on a metaphysics when you "claim" and "know" that the bottomline is that everything is transcendental at a fundamental level? Why intellectualize in this case? The eastern guys claim the same but leave the understanding to the individual through "experience"

The accuracy of representation smacks of correspondence theory of truth ;-) after 200 years empiricists still assume that reality must correspond to our conception of it. You are aware of the argument of illusion? Calling it semantics is equally as excusable as calling the differences with the heliocentric theory and the old Ptolemic worldview a matter of semantics.

The point at discussion was the freisian's linguistic analysis of kant's transcendental idealism and empirical realism...so i guess the use or indication of semantics is pertinent?


In my estimation empiricists have not progressed beyond Hume and in a certain point of view Kant?s epistemology evades or corrects the skepticism of Hume?s epistemology. Otherwise a return to transcendental realism is a regression...... snip ....... The greatest error of empiricism is that it mistakes an epistemology for ontology by ascribing sense-dependent or mind-dependent properties to existing independent things.

Pardon moi but i would like to hear your version on how transcendental idealism and empirical realism go hand in hand or complement each other opening a window of understanding of the world we live in? I seem to have missed the point you made and hence the specific request

I could find a good English translation of whichever's the hot shit down there. I need leads my good man!

Gimme sometime...will try to find out...

Why would dialectics fail to be popular given man?s proclivity for mythology? Isn't it possible to cloack dialectics with the proper amount of rhetoric for the masses?

Had offered this quote in the morality forum a while back...which puts across the issue of myths in very apt words...

So you disagree with the writer of that article? That his rendition of chicken little is half-baked?

He is talking with the perspective of academic philosophy, where as i am looking at personal ones, in a pluralistic world people making a collage of philosophies instead of being labelled "this" or "that". I dont think academic indian philosophers will do much good since the best brains/thinkers seem to move to technology/sciences for money ofcourse ...For example, check this guy out....

<a href="http://www.horizons-2000.org/philosophy%20of%20mind.html" target="_blank">THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: A SITE</a>

phaedrus

forgot about this thread...we pick up this conversation or let it be?

Ender

Oy, i had forgotten. I will reply soon- check again this weekend.

~WiGGiN~

Ender

Yes, Kant was concerned about what makes human experience of the external world possible or intelligible, and tried his damnest at analyzing Hume's presuppositions. This gave birth to transcendental idealism.
Remember it's western thinking prior to Nietzschean perspectivism. Kant thought of himself as the "representative of humanity." A represenatative who never set foot outside his town, Konigsberg, that is. A fundamental tenet of western thought is that there was a systematic nature of humanity, an ideal portrait of knowledge or metaphysics.
Whenever I hear of that phrase "just semantics" I think of lazy shortcuts of intellectual rigueur.
I don't think I can improve on what I already said above. How about this- transcendental idealism saves empirical realism from skepticism, supplies empiricism with a working schema that fixes certain presuppositions, and returns the locus of human knowledge back to the mind.
Ah, Barthes. What does that snippet meant to you?
The labeling will go on, due to our human nature of summarizing everything into compartmentalized short cuts.

~Speaker 4 the Death of God~