reality

Nominalist, I and a few others have been rehearsing arguments about the mind's ability to understand or construct reality in the post that started with Heidegger below. The discussion had dwindled down, but this morning I saw this review of The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe by Michael Frayne. Colin McGinn is the reviewer. Introducing the book, he writes:

[Frayn's] question, central to philosophy, is to what degree, and in what ways, is the world dependent on the mind? Do we construct the world, or is it thrust upon us? He contends that reality has neither substance nor form without the constructive activities of the knowing subject, that space, time, causality and matter are all mental products, the results of our "traffic" with the world, not antecedent realities. He admits that the universe must exist independently of us in some way, but only as a kind of "undifferentiated mass." This is, he thinks, the basic paradox of philosophy: that we both create and are created by the world.

McGinn sides unequivocally with an anti-constructivist view.

although measurement can change the state of what is measured, it simply does not follow that the state has no reality independent of the act of measuring.

I am struck by -- the age of the questions being addresssed and the arguments employed to address them. For McGinn, a professor of philosophy at the University of Miami, neither Hume nor Kant ever happened.

Frayn also claims that the selectivity of attention shows that what we perceive depends on us, as when you focus on a bird in flight and ignore the sky behind it. But this rests on confusing the world as it appears to us with the world as it is in itself, a confusion that runs through the entire book. It is quite true that we contribute to the way things appear to us, but it doesn't follow that we construct the world that thus appears.

But this is not just a confusion that "runs through the entire book," but rather one that runs through a very long argument in philosophy. He's a professor of philosophy, so McGinn must know about this, but his review does a good job of pretending he knows nothing of it. How does McGinn suggest we handle the problem of "confusing the world as it appears to us with the world as it is in itself"? How else are we supposed to know about the world other than as it appears to us, and what, please, are we supposed to be able to know about the world as it is in itself, if it never makes an appearance?

Also, how is the last line from the quotation above supposed to work? On the one hand "it is quite true that we contribute to the way things appear to us," but on the other hand "it doesn't follow that we construct the world that thus appears." If there is reality, and if reality "in itself" has things in it, and if these things and, with them, reality, are shaped by our perception of them, then how have we not contributed to their construction? Or is McGinn expecting us to conclude that there is a reality in itself, only one that we can never reach? Again, an old question thatt McGinn dismisses with long-dismissed arguments.

It is also a mistake to suppose that because we must always be aware of the world through the medium of our own consciousness, we cannot think of the world except as represented by our consciousness. I cannot refer to things without using words to do so, obviously, but it is wrong to conclude that objects cannot exist without words. Frayn is here committing the same fallacy as the idealist philosopher Bishop George Berkeley, who reasoned that objects had to be ideas, since no one can conceive of an object without having an idea of it.

No doubt, McGinn grants just above, "we must always be aware of the world through the medium of our own consciousness." But that doesn't mean "we cannot think of the world except as represented by our consciousness." So: there is some other way to "think of the world" besides . . . thinking about it.

True, McGinn continues, "I cannot refer to things without using words to do so." But from this "it is wrong to conclude that objects cannot exist without words."

There is a confusing ambiguity here, however. It appears to me to be nonsense to say "objects can exist without words," because not only do we mark objects with words, but even the word 'objects' is a word, and so to say that 'objects' can exist without 'words' just kind of gives me a headache. Objects can exist without words? But object itself is a word. Can McGinn point us to these wordless objects (without pointing, which is a sign and too language-like)? How does the author know about these wordless objects? And how can he communicate to me his knowledge? Because we're not to think that just because the word 'object' has been used that we have escaped language and the representations it produces in our minds, as if there were some big difference between saying 'bird' and 'object.'

Comments

[CBR]

As I said, though, you don't have to say Hegel's project is wrong. What you have to say is wrong is Hegel's insistence in the introduction to the PdG that two if knowledge is heterogeneous to what it knows--say, a function of one type of substance, "mind," that has nothing in common qua substance with extended substance--it isn't coherent to say we know anything at all, except our own knowledge. Hegel's solution is that knowledge and known are not distinct. McGinn wants to assume from the outset that thay are, and then wring his hands about how we can get them together. But any post-Hegelian philosopher worth her salt will say, either that mind and thing are not really distinct, or that they both arise out of something together, or, in the case of Heidegger, they arise out of two ways of being that implicate one another and cannot be understood apart from this mutual implication. Because if they are distinct, as in absolutely heterogeneous substances, there CANNOT be knowledge.

[Deke]

Hegel was no materialist; from my readings (and his interesting if verbose and obscure comments on Kant), he follows Kant, mainly, and indeed seems to even amplify the transcendental nature of the understanding (knowledge in regards to the infinite, absolute, etc.). In other words, Herr Hegel's even more f-ed up (and more prone to spewing uncomfirmable propositions about non-observable mental events) than his Vati IK.

HOWEVER, there is one issue which the German idealists rightly raise against the empiricists: teleology. Unfortunately they retain the aristotelian and theological (and anti-humanist) notion of a final cause (still somewhat interesting in light of entropy, etc.). One could ala Feyerabend ask about teleos in the sense of the ends of knowledge, science, scholarship, and the politics of science. But Heidegger (going from his stuff on Technik) does not bother himself with that sort of practical discussion of the ends of science and the academy as say a Feyerabend does (tho' Feyerabend, while somewhat "left" has plenty of nearly crackpot ideas): Dasein is not your pal, it unfolds, does what it wants, sorta JHVH like (why it should be rejected).

[CBR]

>Dasein is not your pal, it unfolds, does >what it wants, sorta JHVH like (why it >should be rejected).

What the hell does that mean? Are you the same person as Unconditioned and Nominalist, or are there three crackpot trolls here?

[Matt]

May I just say, sorry for the interference by a certain notorious one, CBR. I for one am thankful his routine has not put you off (as it undoubtedly has others). I have found your comments very considered and helpful.

Some authors prefer not to moderate their own threads overmuch, as is their right. Still, when it becomes mantra hour and switching pseudonyms merely to create the impression that one is a crowd, imho should really not be tolerated.

[jholbo]

"McGinn wants to assume from the outset that thay are [distinct], and then wring his hands about how we can get them together."

McGinn doesn't assume the distinction. He argues for it. You can argue that his arguments are bad, of course. Most analytic philosophers are a bit annoyed by McGinn's so-called 'mysterianism'. But, so long as you don't even think he has any, you aren't really in a position to judge. (You are wrong to infer from that quote that he is a substance dualist, by the by. He isn't one.)

[CBR]

JHolbo,

You're right, I was saying too much about McGinn, not knowing his real position. From what I have read by him (just a book review or maybe two) however, he seems oblivious to a lot of philosophical water under the bridge. Maybe he has an account of why he thinks it's all crap. Or maybe, like many analytic philosophers, he just ignores arguments stemming from the OTHER crowd. (I realize this attitude goes both ways also).

[Enemy of LS]

8.

"""It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our antagonists: theologians and all who have any theological blood in their veins–this is our whole philosophy. . . . One must have faced that menace at close hand, better still, one must have had experience of it directly and almost succumbed to it, to realize that it is not to be taken lightly (–the alleged free-thinking of our naturalists and physiologists seems to me to be a joke–they have no passion about such things; they have not suffered–). This poisoning goes a great deal further than most people think: I find the arrogant habit of the theologian among all who regard themselves as "idealists"–among all who, by virtue of a higher point of departure, claim a right to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion. . . The idealist, like the ecclesiastic, carries all sorts of lofty concepts in his hand (–and not only in his hand!); he launches them with benevolent contempt against "understanding," "the senses," "honor," "good living," "science"; he sees such things as beneath him, as pernicious and seductive forces, on which "the soul" soars as a pure thing-in-itself–as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word, holiness, had not already done much more damage to life than all imaginable horrors and vices. . . The pure soul is a pure lie. . . So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative.""

Das stimmt!

from Nietzsche's "The AntiChrist."

(when ya hear Herr Doktor Hei., reach for yr luger---as FN agrees)

[Swifty]

Enemy of LS writes, quoting Nietzsche:

I find the arrogant habit of the theologian among all who regard themselves as "idealists"–among all who, by virtue of a higher point of departure, claim a right to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion [end Enemy of LS quotation from Nietzsche]

I don't share Nietzsche's contempt for "idealists" expressed here. Crucial to any kind of critical thought -- from Kant to Marx and beyond, all the way back to Plato -- is not only the claim but the capacity to rise above reality, and to look upon it with suspicion. Take, for instance, Gandhi's well-known adage: "You must be the change you want to see in the world." That can't happen if we are persuaded to take the world as it is, to be more realistic, to allow the world to promote unopposed its own ideological claim to permanency and naturalness.

[EnemyofLS]

Swifty, I have grown tired of all the endless ideological and philosophical chitchat--and there are more subtle or at least patient rhetoricians around than moi--,but I can't help but note that you seem to be conflating political correctness with, well, ontological claims. Lumping Marxist dialectical materialism together with Platonism and Kantian idealism is highly suspect, for one. Marx's point on materialism/idealism was not a claim of immateriality or transcendence (or, ye gods, platonism), but about recognizing a certain degree of creativity, and perhaps conceptualism. The earlier mechanical materialism often led to a sort of nihilistic determinism which I believe Marx objected to, tho' at other times he seems to suggest a type of deterministic view of economics and history (and the Big D of determinism (connected to the Big C of causality) is generally the real metaphysical issue--tho metaphysicians are generally unable to say anything intelligent about it).

I am not a marxist scholar (nor a marxist, tho' orthodox marxism should be reckoned with), but marx doesn't seem entirely consistent on the freedom/determinism issue; moreover, any such freedom of the subject is conditioned by the object-world, a posteriori, and material, indeed bio-physiological (and Marx himself praised the empiricism of Hobbes and even Locke, while perhaps objecting to some of the Brit's willingness to retain some theological concepts (tho' Hobbes did that merely for sake of appearance, methinx)). Not sure of the exact text, but I believe Marx (and Engels) said something like Mind is matter which thinks, and held to a constructivist view of knowledge, more or less--denying any Cartesian or Kantian transcendental subject, as y'all say.

The older materialism is no longer completely viable post-Einstein (well, humans still have stomachs, and, er, other important parts do they not), but Marx was certainly NOT a platonic Realist or Kantian idealist.

Anyway, Kant is not easily retrofitted as psychologist, unless one wants to claim that the synthetic a priori is cognitive, or that he means something different than "transcendental": however I think a secular and even leftist reading of Kant is plausible (didn't Comrade Gramsci think that? see that crazy broad Chabert for details)--not that I agree to that program---and Kant does often seems closer to empiricism and science--or perhaps to empirical phenomenalism--(see analytic of of principles) than to a full-blown idealism ala Berkeley or Hegel or the rest of the german witchdoctors (Kant never goes into rhapsodies over Der Geist realizing itself in time, etc.). Kant also had some awareness of "modality" and probability to some degree, and that is typically an inductive type of concern--.

Obviously Nietzsche did not believe that a psychological/empirical reading of Kant was feasible, and in the Antichrist FN says all sorts of nasty things about him, doesn't he----. Yet Nietzsche also objects to the billiard-ball causality of British Empiricism, I think (tho perhaps other more skilled Nietzscheans might disagree): but ontologically, FN's naturalism (yet premised on intentionality of some sort--the will to power) is not so far from the dia. materialism of Marx, tho' politically of course they izz opposed (and I think Nietzsche correctly understood the real dangers of praising the proletariat--in a sense the nature part of the freedom/nature dialectic (which Hegel develops (or skews) from the 3rd Antinomy of Kant, which is rather sublime but more a matter of poetics than logic)) .......................

[Swifty]

Enemy of LS writes:

I have grown tired of all the endless ideological and philosophical chitchat--and there are more subtle or at least patient rhetoricians around than moi--,but I can't help but note that you seem to be conflating political correctness with, well, ontological claims. [end Enemy of LS]

But "thou shalt not grow tired of all the endless . . . philosophical chitchat." This commandment is provided by St. Adorno:

[begin Adorno]
[W]hen I say that [in this course of lectures] there will be a link to you and your vital interests, I would like to indicate what it will *not* consist in. For however justifiable your interest in gaining useful knowledge from a course of lectures on moral philosophy, there is nowadays a great danger of what might be termed an illicit shortcut to practical action. And we must make clear from the outset that moral philosophy has a necessary connection with practical action. In the various divisions of philosophy moral philosophy is customarily defined as practical philosophy, and Kant's chief work, one that is devoted to moral philosophy, bears the title of a *Critique of Practical Reason*. I must mention here *en passant* that the concept of 'the practical' should not be confused with the degenerate concept that has become current nowadays and can be seen in the way people refer to a practical person as someone who knows how to tackle problems and cope with the problems of life in a clever way. 'Practicality' here goes back to its philosophical origins in [Greek verbs having to do with doing and acting]. In the same way, the themes of Kant's practical philosophy -- in the second part of the *Critique of Pure Reason*, the section dealing with the 'Transcendental Doctrine of Method' -- are formulated in the celebrated question that is undoubtedly familiar to you all: 'What shall we do?' According to Kant, who is, God knows, not the worst guide to the conceptualization of such problems, this question 'What shall we do?' is the crucial question of moral philosophy. And I would like to add that it is the critical question of philosophy in general. For in Kant practical reason takes an unambiguous priority over theoretical reason, and in this respect Fichte was less of an innovator when compared to Kant than he imagined. Today, this question has undergone a strange modification. I have found again and again that when carrying out theoretical analyses -- and theoretical analyses are essentially critical in nature -- that I have been met by the question: 'Yes, but what shall we do?', and this question has been conveyed with a certain undertone of impatience, an undertone that proclaims: 'All right, what is the point of all this theory? It goes on far too long, we do not know how we should behave in the real world, and the fact is that we have to act right away!' I am not blind to the motives behind this protest, particularly in light of the atrocities perpetrated under the Nazis, and also of the difficulties of direct and effective political action in our own day, difficulties that lead people obsessively to put such questions as: 'Very well, if there are barriers everywhere and every attempt to create a better world is blocked off, what exactly are we supposed to do?' But the reality is that the more uncertain practical action has become, the less we actually know what we should do, and the less we find the good life guaranteed to us -- if indeed it was ever guaranteed to anyone -- then the greater our haste in snatching at it. This impatience can very easily become linked with a certain resentment towards thinking in general, with a tendency to denounce theory as such. And from there it is not very long before people start to denounce intellectuals . . . . This reproach about the uselessness of theory, this impatient need to hurl oneself into action without delay spells the end of any kind of theoretical work and contains within itself, teleologically, as if it had been assumed from the outset, a relationshiup to a false, in other words, an oppressive, blind and violent form of practice.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I urge you therefore to exercise a certain patience with respect to the relations between theory and practice. Such a request may be justified because in a situation like the present . . . whether it will be possible ever again to achieve a valid form of practice may well depend on not demanding that every idea should immediatley produce its own legitimating document explaining its own practical use. The situation may well demand that we resist the call of practicality with all our might in order ruthlessly to follow through an idea and its logical implications so as to see where it may lead. I would even say that this ruthlessness, the power of resistance that is inherent in the idea itself and that prevents it from letting itself be directly manipulated for any instrumental purposes whatsoever, this theoretical ruthlessness contains . . . a practical element within itself. Today practice . . . has made great inroads into theory, in other words, into the realm of new thought in which right behavior can be reformulated. This idea is not as paradoxical and irritating as it may sound, for in the final analysis thinking is itself a form of behavior. In its origins thinking is no more than the form in which we have attempted to master our environment and come to terms with it -- testing reality is the name given by analytical psychology to this function of the ego and of thought -- and it is perfectly possible that in certain situations practice will be referred back to theory far more frequently than at other times and in other situations.

Theodor Adorno, *Problems of Moral Philosophy*, Stanford, 2001, 3-4

[EnemyofLS]

That's cool: I am just waiting for someone--postmod, marxist-adornian, priest, even Doc Holblo--to provide a necessary argument for the synthetic a priori, or indeed for any a priori claims, or an immaterial subject for that matter (and au courant witchdoctor Chalmers doesn't even come close). Absent any such arguments, constructivism appears to be the default epistemological position (with a scientific naturalism as ontology). What's more constructivists can actually discuss objects--like, er, stomachs (and grant that the noun "stomach" merely denotes an existing bio-chemical object).

[EnemyofLS]

That's a bit reductionist-- es tut mir leid. Perhap some limited form of design argument--say a secular updating-- might be viable (and didn't Kant sort of grant that?)--how to justify the apparent uniqueness of consciousness. I disagree with the xtian and rightist versions of the IDT, but Berlinski has offered some interesting critiques of pure Darwinian natural selection. I doubt that marxists or postmods would approve, but his arguments (from complexity, but without any hardcore theology) are rather interesting: when do a room of monkeys on typewriters start producing MacBeth? But any such traditional design argument runs into the Candide meme (too obvious to restate really). SO I, for one, might agree to the uniqueness of consciousness view, but still retain some constructivism. Or so it seems.

eh?
chufficiente...no?

[EnemyofLS]

:) ah yeah: a reference to Berlinski and Design argument will give a scare to a marxist, or lit. liar--even one who fancies hisself an "evolutionary psychologist"--- as well as master of punctuation---, when the lit.hack doesn't know Dennett from Diane Feinstone. Dat's for sure. All he/she/it can do it open its hound hole and yawp: Troll!