Locke's "internal" questions

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 25-33
Author(s):  
Masan Bogdanovski
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
The Real ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Internal Question

As Moore does in his proof of the external world, Locke asks the question about the existence of things external to our minds as, in Carnap's sense, an "internal" question. The real reason to be dissatisfied with Locke's causal arguments against skepticism is not that they fail to remove the skeptical alternatives imperiling our knowledge, but in the fact that they sidestep the philosophical skepticism, the characteristically "external" way of posing the philosophical questions about the knowledge of external objects.

Herman Bavinck and Thomas Reid on Perception and Knowing God

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Sutanto
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
External World ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
External Reality ◽  
External Objects ◽  
The World ◽  
Triune God ◽  
Reformed Epistemology ◽  
The Way

AbstractNicholas Wolterstorff argues that Kant had erected an epistemological boundary between mental representations and external reality that precipitates an anxiety in modern theologians about whether one can properly refer to God. As a way past this boundary, Wolterstorff's Reformed epistemology retrieves Thomas Reid's account of perception as an alternative to Kant, according to which knowledge of external objects is direct and immediate. Further, Wolterstorff points to the Dutch neo-Calvinist Herman Bavinck as one who bears many “reidian” elements in his epistemology, especially in the way in which Bavinck argues that the epistemic accessibility of the external world ought to be taken for granted. The thesis of this present paper, however, is that a closer investigation of Bavinck's account of perception reveals that he, unlike Reid, accepts the gap between mental representations and external objects, such that representations are those through which we know the world. Bavinck affirms that a correspondence between the two can be obtained by an appeal to the resources found in Christian revelation. In effect, what emerges in a close comparison of Bavinck and Reid is that Bavinck's account is an alternative theological response to the kantian boundary—one according to which mental representations correspond with external objects because both participate in an organically connected cosmos shaped by a Triune God.

scholarly journals Apprehension and Existence, Appearance and Reality: The Reception of Nafs al-amr Debates after the 13th Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-39
Author(s):  
Murat Kaş
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Real ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Muslim Scholars ◽  
The Way

The structure of human cognition and the means of apprehension is suitable only for partly and gradually conceiving reality. This limitation has led to a certain distance between appearance and reality. This means that there will always be a gap between the judgments of the mind about the external world and its contents, which are entities, cases, facts, and states. This partiality and partiteness of human understanding has produced the truth-maker problem with regard to mind judgments. Muslim scholars who admit the correlation between the structure of reality and the categories of the mind but reject the notion of the construction and the determination of reality by the mind refer to the realm that is independent of the mind’s personal judgments as nafs al-amr. This realm is concerned with the all degrees of reality, namely—from the existent to the non-existent, from the necessity to the contingency and impossibility, from the absolute to the relative, from the material to the non-physical, from the external to the mental, and from the real entities to the abstracted ones—which step into the shot of human cognition or not. Carrying the concept of nafs al-amr from the logical plane to the metaphysical realm that intersects epistemology and ontology has led to debates that pave the way for various treatments. In particular, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 672/1274) nafs al-amr epistle that posited it to the cosmic sphere resulted in criticisms of this conception of nafs al-amr, and these criticisms are the same ones directed to the Avicennian theory of emanation and its epistemological implications. Scholars who use this concept free from any metaphysical presumption and implication argue against his leap from the logical to the cosmic sphere. During the following period, this tension occasioned debates that led to the approaches that refer to the various degrees of reality, i.e., to the cosmic spheres, the spiritual realms, and the divine realms. This work aims to create a map of treatments, arguments and problems with regard to the concept of nafs al-amr.

scholarly journals Render or Reality? Virtuality and the Crysis of Distinction in Contemporary Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 18-24
Author(s):  
Nadia Petrunok
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
The Real ◽  
Human Reality ◽  
Philosophical Questions

Modern philosophy tends to consider human reality in more and more interdisciplinary contexts. Thanks to that, at first traditional, and now new media as well as IT, attract philosophers’ attention and provide material for thinking over a lot of so-called “eternal philosophical questions”. Among them, there are some of the broadest questions: a) catching the margins of the real; b) understanding, which phenomena and objects to constitute human might be called real. The key goal of this article is to research one of the crucial concepts, which brings us to understanding reality, – the notion of virtuality. The author of this paper outlines background of this notion, describes its characteristics and usage in modern philosophical discourse. First of all, virtual is described in its connotations to all three dimensions of time being: past, present, and future. It is argued that the notion of virtuality at first used to be “rediscovered” by Gilles Deleuze, but then it has experienced crucial changes in philosophy of the XXth and XXIst centuries. By means of that, virtual is discussed as a counterpart of the concept of reality. In particular, this article touches upon a variety of connotations between the notions of virtuality, reality and actuality. It also shows the context of juxtaposition of the aforementioned notions. What is more, this paper reveals moral aspects of virtuality both in transcendental and as immanent senses. This article shows the background of indistinguishability for “real” and “virtual”. Finally, it is stated that in the situation of so-called “substituted reality” the multiplicity of connotations of the notion of virtuality ought to be used to rediscover the notion of reality itself.

Getting real about experience

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 801-802
Author(s):  
Inez Myin-Germeys ◽  
Erik Myin
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Sampling Method ◽  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Experience Sampling Method ◽  
External World ◽  
Veridical Perception ◽  
The Real

The idea that experience is essentially subjective rather than of the real world is paradoxical and deeply flawed. The external world is, much more than a mere constraint, essential to meaningfully describe experience and neural activity. This is illustrated by an analysis of the phenomenology of veridical perception and by the study of experience in psychopathology by the Experience Sampling Method (ESM).

Vasubandhu (4th or 5th century AD)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Hayes ◽  
Marek Mejor
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
External Object ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
Prolific Author ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Direct Awareness ◽  
The Mind

An Indian Buddhist philosopher of the fourth or fifth century, Vasubandhu was a prolific author of treatises and commentaries. Best known for his synthesis of the Sarvāstivāda school of Abhidharma, he was sympathetic with the Sautrāntika school and frequently criticized Sarvāstivāda theory from that perspective. Vasubandhu eventually became an eminent exponent of the Yogācāra school. He also wrote short treatises on logic that influenced Dignāga, traditionally said to have been his disciple. Probably the most original of Vasubandhu’s philosophical works are his two short works in verse, known as the Viṃśatikākārikāvṛtti (Twenty-Verse Treatise) and the Triṃśikākārikāvṛtti (Thirty-Verse Treatise). In these two works, he argues that one can never have direct awareness of external objects, but can be aware only of images within consciousness. Given that some of these images, such as those in dreams and hallucinations, are known to occur without being representations of external objects, one can never be certain whether a given image in awareness corresponds to an external object. Because one can never be sure of what is externally real but can be sure of internal experiences, he concludes, a person seeking nirvāṇa should focus attention on the workings of the mind rather than on the external world.

Deductive closure principle

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Becker
Keyword(s):  
General Principle ◽  
External World ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Deductive Closure ◽  
Brain In A Vat ◽  
Philosophical Questions

The deductive closure principle is based on the thought that one straightforward way to extend one’s knowledge is to competently deduce some proposition from one or more propositions that one already knows. G.E. Moore (1939) appears to presume this in his proof of an external world. Updating Moore’s proof to incorporate the more recent rhetorical device of a brain-in-a-vat (BIV), from his putative knowledge that he has hands and his knowledge that his having hands entails that he is not merely a BIV being fed experiences, through electrodes, of having hands, Moore deduces and therefore claims to know that he is not a BIV. A natural sceptical reply also exploits the idea that one can extend one’s knowledge through deduction. The sceptic will say, for example, that Moore does not know that he is not a brain-in-a-vat (BIV), for if he were his experience would be no different to what it actually is. Moore does know, however, that if he has hands then he is not (just) a BIV. Therefore, Moore does not even know that he has hands, for if he did, he could deduce and come to know that he is not a BIV, but that is not something he can know because, again, his vat experiences would be indistinguishable from normal ones. The idea that knowledge can always be extended through competent deduction from known premises – which implies that knowledge is deductively closed under known entailment – raises at least three philosophical questions. First, what general principle best captures this phenomenon? Due primarily to risk arising from the fallibility of belief-forming processes including deduction, there is reason to question even the most plausible formulations of closure. Second, are there any counterexamples to the principle or constraints on its application? Some philosophers claim that a properly formulated closure principle admits of exceptions, even if deduction is assumed to be infallible. Third, how might a theory of knowledge that upholds a robust (exceptionless) closure principle achieve anti-sceptical results?.

Spinoza and Property

2020 ◽  
pp. 224-238
Author(s):  
Alexandre Matheron
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Real Power ◽  
The Real ◽  
Convincing Case ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Moral Power ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Desire

Though Spinoza did not write much explicitly concerning the subject of property, Matheron, in this essay, makes the convincing case that Spinoza nonetheless had a rich and compelling view on the matter as it was understood in the context of the 17th century. Spinoza’s decisive innovation, against Hobbes and all of his other predecessors is to conceive of right as a physical power, as opposed to a moral power. In other words, right is coextensive with the real power to do whatever one desires to do, which is, quite simply, whatever they actually do in fact do. The inevitable human desire to possess external objects, be they land or money, serves as the basis for Matheron’s analysis of Spinoza’s political philosophy. Matheron concludes with a number of striking claims about Spinoza’s communism, which he suggests is very present in such discussions of property.

The External World

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Mark Siderits
Keyword(s):  
Time Lag ◽  
Infinite Divisibility ◽  
External World ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

The Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhism denies the existence of external objects, holding that only mental entities are ultimately real. This chapter examines the arguments developed by Yogācāra philosophers for that thesis, as well as objections raised by Buddhist realists. It begins with examination of Buddhist arguments against physicalism, which were principally aimed at the Cārvāka school of Indian materialism. It then discusses the route to idealism by way of the representationalist theory of sense perception that was supported by a time-lag argument. Idealism as such was subsequently supported by appeal to parsimony, as well as by considerations to do with infinite divisibility, and arguably by the claim that physical objects and cognitions are never grasped separately.

What is the Scandal of Philosophy?

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-166
Author(s):  
Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Real ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism ◽  
Realist View

The central question of this paper is: what has Kant’s Refutation of Idealism argument proven, if anything? What is the real scandal of philosophy and universal human reason? I argue that Kant’s Refutation argument can only be considered as sound if we assume that his target is what I call ‘metaphysical external-world skepticism’ (rather than traditional ‘epistemological external-world skepticism’). What is in question is not the ‘existence’ of outside things, but their very ‘nature’, that is, the claim that the thing outside us, which appears to us as persistent body in space, exists in itself as a substantia noumenon. Assuming the indirect-realist view that we only immediately know ideas and that their putative objects are known by inference, the metaphysical external-world skeptic doubts that the nature of things outside oneself is mind-independent.

Referring to the World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
External Objects ◽  
The World ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Basic Reference

Our words and ideas refer to objects and properties in the external world; this phenomenon is central to thought, language, communication, and science. But great works of fiction are full of names that don’t seem to refer to anything! This book explores the myriad of problems that surround the phenomenon of reference. How can words in language and perturbations in our brains come to stand for external objects? Reference is essential to truth, but which is more basic: reference or truth? How can fictional characters play such an important role in imagination and literature, and how does this use of language connect with more mundane uses? The book develops a framework for understanding reference, and the theories that other thinkers—past and present—have developed about it. But it doesn’t simply tell us what others thought; the book is full of new ideas and analyses, making for a vital final contribution from a seminal philosopher.

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