/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19793387]

Does Kant refute materialism? It seems like objects being mental representations is a pretty good argument against it.

[Anonymous No.19793419]

>>19793387
No. The ''representative'' faculty is not the only faculty of the mind. It needs (sensible) intuitions to which the representations are bound.

[Anonymous No.19793482]

>>19793419
>It needs (sensible) intuitions to which the representations are bound.
Refuted by Schopenhauer

[Anonymous No.19793581]

>>19793482
>Schopenhauer
hahahahahahahahahahhaha

[Anonymous No.19794095]

>>19793387
>Does Kant refute materialism?
Materialism had already been refuted by Plato, the only thing German idealists like Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer and Hegel did was copy ihim. The only materialists that exist today are amateurs in philosophy who are too lazy to read a philosophy book.

>>19793581
Schopenhauer critiques materialism pretty well in the World as Will and Representation, following the critiques of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, as "the philosophy of the subject that forgets to take account of itself when explaining its object." Which it's an attempt to explain everything in the world by means of the world's most primordial "stuff" or "things," considered as objective, meaning the fundamental matter is both self-subsisting non-mental, and does not get its matter-ness by being "relative" to a mind thinking it (as concepts, mental images, sensations etc. do). It precedes minds, minds are a subset of it and not the other way around.

[Anonymous No.19794236]

>>19793387
Saying that there are only material substances is to say something positive about things in themselves, which is obviously to go beyond what can be known.

[Anonymous No.19794248]

>>19794236
Think, you're thinking of physicalism there buddy.

[Anonymous No.19794252]

>>19793387
Kant's work is categorical, which is to say, it is a theory of perception not ontology.

[Anonymous No.19794259]

>>19793387
It's shit like this why socialists are so mentally ill in their perception of the world including the very idea of perception itself. I saw a guy try to explain that we should ban television because "images are artificial forms and channels" that affect people's behavior in "the real world" and that hyper realistic forms would make society more stable because it would end abstract thought and imagination. And yes, he hated anime

[Anonymous No.19794277]

>>19794259
My point is he clearly thought what is 100% a copy of nature is good and what is abstract is bad. Very autistic and socialist realism. I don't think a normal person can think that way unless they are narcissist

[Anonymous No.19794291]

>>19794248
doesn't make a difference with regards to the question

[Anonymous No.19794363]

>>19794259
>>19794259
>>19794277
Socialist realism is an art movement. Socialism is basically materialism in politics. Realism (the one of the Greeks) is more compatible with capitalism if you ask me.

[Anonymous No.19794451]

>>19794259
>everything I hate is socialism!!!!!
I really didn't expect a Platonic critique of the arts to be considered socialism though, Americans are fucking retarded.

[Anonymous No.19794486]

>>19793387
Idealism is incredibly dumb.

Idealism inevitably slips into solipsism, since if you assume the world is made up of ideas, you can never be sure of the existence of other people. Therefore, the only real progenitor of ideas must be you, and the entire world is merely a figment of your imagination.

Idealists have no way to define what's real from what's not. What makes the mere thought about a house different from a real house? Can't say shared reality, as established before, because to be consistent you must be a solipsist. You could say the nonsensical crap that Berkeley said about certain experiences being "more real" than others, but he has no way to logically explain how to differentiate that besides subjective experience.

You could introduce God as a solution I suppose, but it seems to me that simply admitting the existence of an external, physical world (and therefore accepting materialism) would be much simpler.

[Anonymous No.19794716]

>>19794486
>since if you assume the world is made up of ideas
For fuck sake's anon.

[Anonymous No.19795239]

>>19794095
>Plato
Don't embarass yourself

[Anonymous No.19795247]

>>19795239
He's right though

[Anonymous No.19795254]

>>19793387
I read a text about someone claiming that Kant is not clear about whether the thing in itself is outside or inside the subject... so there you have it... it is not possible to answer your question... but if you ask me... Kant is at least talking about a transzendental subject and a transzendental object... and overall I can't believe that he would say that the thing in itself is inside the subject... the thing in itself is what gives sensation and that is what he calls the matter of things... the sensory impression... that is where everything begins for him... so I would strongly advice to not read Kant as refuting materialism but rather to read him as refuting to be able to know things in themselves but only to be able to realize or recognize them as they appear for us... that is transcendental idealism... he is actually refuting idealism in his critique of pure reason arguing that his transcendental idealism saves the empirical realism... so it is really a difficult thing to say what Kant really was up to... but Kant was the most reasonable philosopher of all time... so I doubt he would have said the whole world is inside of you and there is nothing else... read it as if the thing in itself is giving the materialistic input from a world outside of you where it all starts... I think in the end you can not even solve this problem... Kant is just not clear enough about it...

[Anonymous No.19795315]

>>19794486
>since if you assume the world is made up of ideas
..........That's not idealism anon...

[Anonymous No.19795317]

>>19794486
>Idealism inevitably slips into solipsism, since if you assume the world is made up of ideas, you can never be sure of the existence of other people. Therefore, the only real progenitor of ideas must be you, and the entire world is merely a figment of your imagination.
Which philosopher do you think held such a position? (Hint: nobody did.)

[Anonymous No.19795333]

>>19795317
Well, for starters, Hume went so far as to doubt the certainty of cause and effect, so he would've easily doubted the certainty of other people, and probably even himself. But he was not an idealist either (which refutes that anon's accusation in a funny way).

[Anonymous No.19795348]

>>19795317
George Berkeley

[Anonymous No.19795355]

>>19795348
Not a solipsist though

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.19795526]

>>19795333
He doubted it had a rational proof which was part of his basis for empiricism

[Anonymous No.19795676]

>>19794716
It's all so tiresome...

[Anonymous No.19796597]

Strong metaphysical materialism is a form of "dogmatism" for Kant, meaning it, like all metaphysical claims about the ultimate reality of the external world, can't be verified by experience. It's a conjecture that arises from concepts and ideas, positing certain "ultimate" realities underlying the particular things we experience. Just like one can derive idealist and rationalist conjectures from our concepts and ideas, and dogmatically impose them on a reality we can't have such knowledge of, one can do the same with materialist conjectures of an ultimate "stuff" or "atoms."

Understood this way, ancient atomism and materialism weren't empirical observations, they were logical arguments about what the "ultimate thing" or "ultimate stuff" must be. Keep dividing and dividing particular things downwards until you discover something that can't be divided anymore. These are then necessarily the a-tomoi, the in-divisible or un-cuttable things underlying all the divisible, cuttable things.

We can easily imagine this as a LOGICAL notion, an IDEA. But the key point of Kant's philosophy is that such an idea cannot be verified in experience, because it can never be "given" in experience. All things we can actually experience conform to our receptive-intuitive faculty of imagining objects in space and time, and this faculty inherently thinks of things in terms of infinite divisibility and extendability (i.e. we are natural geometers). So the most we can do is conjecture, EMPTILY (with no actual perceptions of actual objects to "fill" the conjecture), about "ultimate things," whether those ultimate things are a prima materia, atomoi, "chaos," God, the Absolute, etc.

What we're really doing when we think of such ultimate things is trying to go beyond what is actually given in experience, by combining our concepts and ideas to form "ultimate" ideas, ideas like "there must be a prime mover, first cause, uncaused cause, unconditioned being," etc. This is natural because our cognition is, apparently, set up in such a way that we are always seeking the cause of every thing we empirically encounter. That's why we have ideas like "every effect has a cause / every cause has an effect" built into us. But Kant's argument is that these ideas are not meant to provide some kind of direct access or bridge to ultimate metaphysical realities, like a prime material or a divine Absolute, instead they are REGULATIVE ideas for governing our PARTICULAR empirical analyses of actual things (i.e. doing natural science).

[Anonymous No.19796601]

>>19796597
Dogmatism is thus what happens when people get caught up in these regulative, meta-ideas and start thinking about what they can tell us about the ideal-rational structure of "reality itself." But according to Kant, they are inherently mutually contradictory and thus lead to paradoxes. There is simply no solution to the paradox "every effect has a cause but every cause has an effect." The paradoxical regress we experience when we try to imagine a First Cause or Unmoved Mover can't be solved by better ideas or conceptual tricks. It's built in. Kant devotes the second half of the Critique of Pure Reason to debunking the various paradoxes that arise in this way, while suggesting that they are perennial temptations to be resisted.

One of these paradoxes is materialism. So materialism has always been philosophically "available" as a solution to the problem of "what is the first/ultimate thing?" It gets expressed in different ways depending on culture and time obviously, but the basic idea of a prime material is what motivated the pre-Socratics to posit both a single "stuff" (water, air, fire) as the actual real "stuff" underlying all other kinds of things, and to posit multiple kinds of things as irreducible (Empedocles' four elements, Anaxagoras' seeds, Democritus'/Leucippus' atoms). On a Kantian interpretation these all stem from the same dogmatic error of trying to logically deduce that the ultimate something must be one kind of something.

A related dogmatic error is vulgar panpsychism, which really just tries to solve the mind-matter duality problem by saying "both mind and matter are aspects of one primal 'stuff', psycho-matter," which is almost a tautology and doesn't really solve the problem, just dodges it.

So Kant is anti-materialist for the same reason he is anti-idealist/anti-rationalist. But he could also be called pro-materialist in the attenuated sense that he was basically a natural scientist who believed Newtonian mechanics was the best (really, the only) way to talk about the external world. A lot of Kantians and people inspired by Kant's thought or simply formed in its afterglow like Helmholtz and Mach came a lot closer to affirming materialism. Most of the great physicists of the early 20th century are "Kantians" of some kind in this way (particularly as mediated through Schopenhauer and Mach).

[Anonymous No.19797220]

>>19793387
You cannot refute materialism...
Every attempt so far is nothing but word games that aren't compatible with life.

[Anonymous No.19797290]

>>19797220
>You cannot refute materialism
Then proof to me right now that the world and it's properties exist independent of conscious observation you faggot

[Anonymous No.19797297]

>>19797290
Me waking up every morning even though I was unconscious and other people dieng never gaining conciousness again.

[Anonymous No.19797317]

>>19797297
You realize your idea of waking up every morning is a product of your consciousness?

[Anonymous No.19797325]

>>19794291
Does with regards to your supposed refutation.

[Anonymous No.19797355]

>>19797220
> "Truth is only that which is practical in real world."
A pragmatic approach. Enough for someone to live their life according to. But, nonetheless, what you're describing is a rejection of the pursuit for truth and instead you're proposing to adhere to what makes most sense at the first glance.

>>19797297
Look deeper and ask "How am I able to contemplate these ideas?"
You can choose, of course "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." option, but that would be, again, only a way of dealing with inability to find answers with any measurable degree of veracity. As this anon concisely summarized ( >>19796597 )( >>19796601 )

[Anonymous No.19797446]

>>19795254
I really want to understand philosophy but I get lost so quick if there isn’t a break down of every noun. What do you mean by subject? Like an object?

[Anonymous No.19797456]

>>19797317
Word game.
>>19797355
>what you're describing is a rejection of the pursuit for truth and instead you're proposing to adhere to what makes most sense at the first glance.
Once you go full circle, understanding that "Truth" is nothing more than a term with no definite border, you see idealism for what it is.
A game which weasles itself into the margins of the undefined. It's akin to lawyering around and detached so far from its original purpose you will default on ridiculous propositions that are unable to sustain anything but itself.

Wittgenstein was spot on in that regard.
>only a way of dealing with inability to find answers with any measurable degree of veracity
It's an interesting given, but as I previously stated about "Truth", ultimately pointless.

[Anonymous No.19797480]

>>19797446
Subject generally in philosophical usage = the mind/soul/thinker/being experiencing something

The subject (thinking person, mind) contemplates the object

It has way more meanings if you go back to medieval usage of the term, meanings related to how we now say "the subject of this book" or "the subject of this discussion." But the basic and most common meaning in philosophical language is more related to subjectivity, the capacity of a mind to have experiences and do whatever it is a mind does (think, receive impressions, etc.).

[IA No.19797582]

>>19797456
There's an interesting read I once found on JSTOR titled Nietzsche's Critique of Truth by Ken Gemes (found on libgen as well). It a nice read on the stance that you're proposing. So I understand where you're coming from.
But I believe one shouldn't embrace completely a belief that world is merely material, even if it appears so. Purely pragmatic approach rids person of seeing the reason in existence. "If there is no higher purpose — even if the purpose is only the reason for one to sustain the process of living — why bother?"
Therefore, one must not "choose to be silent", but instead "choose what to say", otherwise there is no meaning in a purely materialistic world driven only by one's animal impulses.
And, because of the reason described right above and because I am able to contemplate the origin of first principle, I conclude that idealism is simply necessary for one's life. And it is out of this that I reason that materialism, as a belief, — a stance against idealism, — loses against the said idealism.


>>19797446
A good definition I once found:
"Subject is the carrier of action"
From above we conclude that object is the receiver of subjects actions, or rather it is an entity subject's actions fall upon.

Subject - the carrier of action.
Object - the receiver of action.

[Anonymous No.19797608]

>>19797582
>JSTOR titled Nietzsche's Critique of Truth by Ken Gemes (found on libgen as well).
I will take a look at this.
>Purely pragmatic approach rids person of seeing the reason in existence. "If there is no higher purpose — even if the purpose is only the reason for one to sustain the process of living — why bother?"
This is a non sequitur. Why should you stop bothering?

[IA No.19797836]

>>19797608
I should've been more careful with my wording.
Pragmatism is a valid framework to live by if it includes in itself some aspects of idealism.
What I meant in that post is
> purely materialistic
You still may ask why I think so:
> Why should you stop bothering? (with living)
Why should one not? Given the materialistic rejection of higher aspects of consciousness, that is, reducing it to mere chemical reactions in one's brain, why would anyone who embraces the mentioned notion of consciousness continue on living with the sufferings, or even mere toil, imposed on them by the world?

We now begin to stray further from the OP's initial ontological nature of the debate into the cultural aspects of both idealism and materialism. I'll only add that I believe the
idealism is the only out of two that gives person a meaningful framework to live by, a believe that there exist processes beyond our material world. Materialism disparages human condition, while idealism seeks to justify it's higher origins.

It's as you described
> Once you go full circle
Aristotle(~materialism) > studied by Descartes (led to Idealism) > studied by Spinoza (led to materialism) > studied and criticized by Hume (led to idealism) > I'm sure someone could continue this chain further, I'll stop here.
All this study and critique eventually leads to existentialism and pragmatism, transcendentalism

Out of two only one (idealism) will help you justify the reason and give meaning to life, and help you alleviate the suffering(of any kind) imposed on you by this world, the other, if one fully embraces it, leads to despair(because of the reasons described in the first paragraph of this post).

I'd really recommend Lev Shestov's work "Apotheosis of Groundlessness".

[Anonymous No.19797861]

>>19797220
>You cannot refute materialism
Materialism is the negative claim that the entirety of reality is reducible to physical entities. Idealism is very often on this site presented as necessarily subjective idealism, which is also a negative claim, but on its own, idealism isn't. It simply states that some elements of our reality are not explicable in terms of physical entities. One simply needs to look out for syntactical categories out there in nature, or on the periodic table, and not find anything that looks like them, to prove materialism wrong.

[Anonymous No.19797871]

>>19797582
>>19797480
thank you guys

[Anonymous No.19797915]

>>19797836
>why would anyone who embraces the mentioned notion of consciousness continue on living with the sufferings, or even mere toil, imposed on them by the world?
This assumes there's a netto negative aspect to living (by materialist standards? Or an after life that makes this suffering neglible?). When making such a case one needs to provide proof, so far none is presented.
The rest of your post, and justification of idealism, hinges around this concept. As presented your argument is pragmatic as well. >Idealism is the means for humans to life.
So I will ask, by which measure do you deem a life lived worthy?
>One simply needs to look out for syntactical categories out there in nature, or on the periodic table, and not find anything that looks like them, to prove materialism wrong.
Word game that fails to make sense.
>That not on the periodic table isn't material therefore idealism exists
Yes photons aren't an element either, nor are your dreams, but this is a very trite argument that, as stated earlier, leads to a ridiculous proposition.

[Anonymous No.19797924]

>>19797915
2nd part meant for
>>19797861

[IA No.19798029]

>>19797915
Just to make it clear, there is nothing wrong with pragmatism as long as the person finds practicality in fideism (basically, adding idealism into their pragmatic framework.)

As to your questioning of net negative experience of one's life:
One can simply look at the fact that we feel joy in our life much less than we feel the imposing weight of toil, meaninglessness, and suffering — both spiritual and physical. You can, of course, say that it's all a matter of perspective, but how long will you be able to wake up and greet the day with "Oh, it sure is another jolly good day upon our god's green earth"? I doubt anyone will be able to keep an act for long. Even the wealthy, who can indulge in, you would think, endless hedonism, eventually get bored of it, their dopamine receptors get burnt and they are forced to return to reality at hand with responsibilities and toil. Their only solace is finding what I describe below...

> So I will ask, by which measure do you deem a life lived worthy?
But haven't I showed that already? It's the measure of fulfillment you gain by pursuing that which "you chose to say, instead of remaining silent". And this your choice depends entirely on embracing, at least to some extent, the validity of idealism.

[Anonymous No.19798070]

>>19798029
Your measurement of suffering and fulfilment are wholly materialistic.
You suppose idealism holds truth because of an ethical point of view (pragmatic?). It is inconsistent because its based of a materialistic worldview.
> One can simply look at the fact that we feel joy in our life much less than we feel the imposing weight of toil,
I’m going to assume you meant a qualitative argument as the quantitative has no ground to stand on.
The result is simple: most people are content. Indifferent to suffering. I don’t see how this is unwanted.

[Anonymous No.19798159]

>>19794095
This is a bad post. If you think Hegel is a Platonist you haven't read Hegel and haven't even read about Hegel. One of Hegel's great achievements was bridging the realist vs nominalism gap, making them part of a circular whole. A lot of his ideas got taken up by semiotics when Pierce and Sausser got that going in earnest and cognitive science has borne out at least part of the idea of the universals generating and shaping reality (as conciousness experiences it, which is the only reality to speak of for Hegel), but instantiations of universals in the world creating the universal.

Hegel and Fichte are not dualists, and certainly not Platonists. Hegel said he was most inspired by Heraclitus of all the Greeks, but given his little survives of him, I think that is more posturing for how he sees his work. He takes more from Aristotle than Plato in much though.

Materialism hasn't been refuted. The vast majority of philosophers of mind these days are physicalists. The ontological nature of the physical is hotly debated, with some analytics saying nothing really can be said of it, but that doesn't mean they reject that physicalism describes major facets of reality.

>>19794486
This isn't how most idealists go about things. There were legitimate solpisists, but few since ancient Greece made a name for themselves, since there isn't too much more you can say on the topic.

You can also be ontologically agnostic as to whether reality can be without mind. I think that is maybe the fairest position since the dual value logic of correspondence definitions of truth and empiricism can't exist without an observer, and so there is a big problem with using empiricism to ground a noumenal world sans observer. This is why so many scientists stretch themselves to find theories of panpsychism (that and they want an answer to the Hard Problem and doubt physics and the dependant special sciences can ever get us there).

For my part, Hegel has been the thinker whose most opened my eyes on the whole topic. Of course, I am now stuck being pic related.

[IA No.19798302]

>>19798070
> Your measurement of suffering and fulfillment are wholly materialistic.
Have no idea how you drew that conclusion out of mine
> choice depends entirely on embracing, at least to some extent, the validity of idealism(i.e. purpose, which I can only find in embracing the idealistic worldview).
and
> ... and suffering — both spiritual and physical


> You suppose idealism holds truth because of an ethical point of view(pragmatic?)
Yes, because it makes more sense for someone who faced the wall of creation at least once to believe in idealistic view of the world.
While googling some details I found this other quotes from Shestov's work which I think describes my stance well:
> Which are the more "practical"? Those who compare earthly life to sleep and wait for the miracle of the awakening, or those who see in death a sleep without dream-faces, the perfect sleep, and while away their time with "reasonable" and "natural" explanations? That is the basic question of philosophy, and he who evades it evades philosophy itself.


> most people are content.Indifferent to suffering.
Most people, are not content with suffering. They might tolerate it for some time, but no one will be able to live a live in constant suffering and stay indifferent to it. Some choose to even end it, by ending their life. If makes much more sense for idealism to be true simply due to existence of human condition.
Most people don't go far enough to see the wall of absurdity, and from there go on to turn to fideism. Most people believe in religion, and not because they can justify their belief on groundlessness (like I am doing right now), but because they are either afraid of not believing("you'll go to hell if you don't believe"), or haven't ask enough "why's", or believe whole-heatedly in the existence of overseeing god, because you know "Hell Is the Absence of God" — when you're, say, a soldier, hiding from bullets piercing the air while shells are exploding around you, gore and death fill your world, imagine there not being an overseeing god who sees you, imagine there is no one to even commiserate with you. Or when people are alone in their apartments, drinking themselves into oblivion, can you imagine them thinking "well, shit, it's a materialistic world, there is no providence overseeing my life, life's shit", don't you think their next thought would be that of ending things?

It simply is more practical for a person to accept the validity of idealism, that things exist only because we contemplate them — the idea puts human consciousness onto a higher pedestal.

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
Materialism goes only as deep as planck's length, idealism goes far beyond.
So coming back to your:
> understanding that "Truth" is nothing more than a term with no definite border
Can you still say that materialism is the objectively better choice out of the two?

[Anonymous No.19798370]

>>19798159
>If you think Hegel is a Platonist you haven't read Hegel and haven't even read about Hegel.
I didn't say Hegel was a platonist you dumbass, but he takes a lot of things from Plato.

>One of Hegel's great achievements was bridging the realist vs nominalism gap, making them part of a circular whole. A lot of his ideas got taken up by semiotics when Pierce and Sausser got that going in earnest and cognitive science has borne out at least part of the idea of the universals generating and shaping reality (as conciousness experiences it, which is the only reality to speak of for Hegel), but instantiations of universals in the world creating the universal
Correct.

>Hegel and Fichte are not dualists, and certainly not Platonists.
I didn't say they were dualists, if you think that:
>Anon say they aren't materialists
>Therefore anon thinks they are dualists
You have a lot of way to go in philosophy, for example Aquinas was not a materialist, but not a dualist in the substance Cartesian nor property dualism sense either.

>Hegel takes more from Aristotle than Plato in much though.
I don't agree, can you elaborate?.

>Materialism hasn't been refuted.
Lol

>The vast majority of philosophers of mind these days are physicalists.
What about Chalmers, Kripke and Kastrup?. The hard problem of consciousness, the Leibniz gap haven't been resolved. Denett denies consciousness exists, that it's pure schizo ramblings.

[Anonymous No.19798447]

>>19794248
What's the difference?

[Anonymous No.19798607]

>>19795239
>He thinks Plato is embarrassing
tell me you only read secondary literature without telling me you only read secondary literature

[Anonymous No.19798627]

>Materialism hasn't been refuted.

Oh, my.

[Anonymous No.19798628]

>>19794486
Vaush is that you?

[Anonymous No.19798659]

>>19796597
>>19796601
lovely

[Anonymous No.19798784]

>>19793387

did Rene Guenon ever refuted Kant?

[Anonymous No.19798828]

>>19798784
this right here, this is art

[Anonymous No.19799163]

>>19798370
>Materialism had already been refuted by Plato, the only thing German idealists like Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer and Hegel did was copy ihim

I took this to mean that these guys copied Plato vis-á-vis the status of the physical world. They absolutely did not.

Maybe try to avoid leaping into blanket statements like that (i.e. "three of the most novel philosophers in history just copied this other guy), or the blind assertion that probably the most popular contemporary ontology has been refuted.

Maybe you should make your argument. It must be pretty groundbreaking since 81.6% of philosophers in a large 3,200 person poll subscribe to non-skeptical realism as regards the external world and another 4.8% only go for skepticism. Also interestingly, undergrads are far more likely than professional philosophers to go for Platonism and non-realist views of the external world.

I think this is a case of generally getting Plato first, having very little experience of much else, and being on the bad side of the Dunning Kreuger effect.

Less than 2/5ths embrace Platonism vis-á-vis abstract objects as well.

[Anonymous No.19799179]

>>19799163
Forgot the survey:

https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl

Re: physicalists philosophy of mind, non-physicalists sit at 27%.

[Anonymous No.19799262]

>>19794095
>the only thing German idealists like Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer and Hegel did was copy ihim.
It's amazing how true this is. Plato and Aristotle still hold the most weight. The only guy who did something original was maybe NEETche

[Anonymous No.19799295]

>>19797915
>Word game that fails to make sense.
How? Suspend all your ontological biases and ask yourself, "is there something like syntactical categories in my life"?
If you have the tools to understand the question, you'll understand that the answer is also positive, and you'll understand this outside of experience. The existence of ideal entities is known through pure intuition, not through (flawed and imprecise) empirical proof.

[Anonymous No.19799308]

>>19794095
>Schopenhauer critiques materialism pretty well in the World as Will and Representation, following the critiques of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, as "the philosophy of the subject that forgets to take account of itself when explaining its object.
That describes buddhism as well

[Anonymous No.19799313]

>>19794236
>which is obviously to go beyond what can be known.
Kant infers that the "ether" is logically necessary in Opus Postmum

[Anonymous No.19799318]

>>19795254
>he is actually refuting idealism in his critique of pure reason arguing that his transcendental idealism saves the empirical realism
Berkeley's system preserves the empirical realism too though by having all ideas be contained in the mind of God, which sustains and grounds them instead of it having it be one guy's imagination. Was Kant straw-manning him?

[Anonymous No.19799326]

>>19794486
>since if you assume the world is made up of ideas, you can never be sure of the existence of other people
Solipsism means the active denial of other peoples existence, being skeptical of having a reliable means of knowledge to verify their existence isnt the same thing as actively denying their existence. You can think their existence is highly likely and that there is valid grounds to infer it while being skeptical of reliably knowing or proving it.

[Anonymous No.19799328]

>>19795254
>the thing in itself is what gives sensation and that is what he calls the matter of things...
This applying causality to something supposedly outside of it.
>so I would strongly advice to not read Kant as refuting materialism but rather to read him as refuting to be able to know things in themselves but only to be able to realize or recognize them as they appear for us...
They appear to us mentally.

[Anonymous No.19799912]

Think of something very mundane.
You take a pinch of salt or sand in your fingers and roll them together, allowing excess grains to fall off in the process. At the beginning, you have a pinch of salt. Eventually, through the movement and filtering, you suddenly have a number of grains, 4 or 5 usually. Without looking, without mentally counting, you made a quantity, a number, appear to you.
This reveals that counting is essentially related to the ability to discern discrete wholes, and that our tactile sense provides that ability when it is capable of mapping the entirety of the surface of an object.
There is obviously a material aspect to be explored here, in relation to the sensitivity of our skin as an interface and the size of both our fingers and the grains to be manipulated. Assuredly some brilliant man has already figured out the majority of the empirical science behind it, down to its axioms and its possible implementations.
However, none of this will explain to you why it is a rule of experience that things that forms a discrete whole can be perceived as mathematical. Materialism can only dismiss the question by saying it is a fiction, that it is not real, in our minds, which not only fails to honor the importance of such things in our lives, but betrays itself by throwing the very axiomatic foundation of its operation to a rather ironic analogical dualistic abyss.
> “Only through a reduction, which we shall call the phenomenological reduction, do I acquire an absolutely givenness that no longer offers anything transcendent” (Husserl 1999a, 34).
> Through the epistemological reduction we exclude all transcendent presuppositions, because the possible validity and sense of transcendence is in question” (Husserl 1999a, 37).

[Anonymous No.19799983]

>>19799163
>>19799163
>It must be pretty groundbreaking since 81.6% of philosophers in a large 3,200 person poll subscribe to non-skeptical realism as regards the external world and another 4.8% only go for skepticism. Also interestingly, undergrads are far more likely than professional philosophers to go for Platonism and non-realist views of the external world.
>I think this is a case of generally getting Plato first, having very little experience of much else, and being on the bad side of the Dunning Kreuger effect.
>Less than 2/5ths embrace Platonism vis-á-vis abstract objects as well.
Pic.

[Anonymous No.19800310]

>>19799179
And how much have these 67% contributed to an actual understanding of the mind? 0%. The only thing you are doing here is postulate that 100% of all modern philosophers are useless.

[Anonymous No.19800324]

>>19799163
>>19800310
**To be more concrete, they are materialists because they are useless, despite having infinitely more scientific material than anyone who as ever lived in the past. It's no surprise nobody takes philosophy seriously nowadays.

[Anonymous No.19801873]

bump

[Anonymous No.19801995]

>>19797220
How would a materialist explain the experience of the sublime and/or the beautiful?
No word games here faggot.