/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6284862]

Bishop Berkeley was right about literally everything. /lit/ cannot face this fact because it's fallen for the Kantian non-argument that 'things-in-themselves exist b-b-because they have to!' and are too cowardly to realise that the material world is nothing but a spook.

[Anonymous No.6284881]

Based Anglican thinker, along with Sterne, Milton, Pope, Joseph Butler, Swift, Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot.

[Anonymous No.6284884]

>right about everything

even that all perceiving god shit? surely you don't actually believe that?

but if you're a berkelyian atheist, how do you avoid solipsism? people are nothing more than your perception of them..

[Anonymous No.6284886]

>>6284862
>Kantian non-argument that 'things-in-themselves exist b-b-because they have to!'
Confirmed for never having read Kant

[Anonymous No.6284896]

>>6284886
Not him, but he's right. Kant literally makes no argument for the existence of things in themselves other than of course they exist

[Anonymous No.6284899]

Idealism is pleb-tier

[Anonymous No.6284900]

>>6284896
>To deny the positive advantage of the service which this criticism renders us would be as absurd as to maintain that the system of police is productive of no positive benefit, since its main business is to prevent the violence which citizen has to apprehend from citizen, that so each may pursue his vocation in peace and security. That space and time are only forms of sensible intuition, and hence are only conditions of the existence of things as phenomena; that, moreover, we have no conceptions of the understanding, and, consequently, no elements for the cognition of things, except in so far as a corresponding intuition can be given to these conceptions; that, accordingly, we can have no cognition of an object, as a thing in itself, but only as an object of sensible intuition, that is, as phenomenon—all this is proved in the analytical part of the Critique; and from this the limitation of all possible speculative cognition to the mere objects of experience, follows as a necessary result. At the same time, it must be carefully borne in mind that, while we surrender the power of cognizing, we still reserve the power of thinking objects, as things in themselves. For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without something that appears—which would be absurd.

[Anonymous No.6284903]

>>6284886
>reason is limited by experience
>experience is mind-dependent
>b-b-but other shit exists I swear just trust me

[Anonymous No.6284909]

>>6284900
Literally no argument, just an assertion. Kant was denounced by some quarters in Germany when he published the first Kritik precisely because this part of his "argument" is so fucking retarded and the logical conclusion of the rest of his work is scepticism at best and egosim at worst.

[Anonymous No.6284928]

>>6284899
Considering the three big German idealists are the most complex philosophers (matched only by Heidegger, really, in terms of complexity), this is not an accurate statement.

[Anonymous No.6284945]

>>6284928
Heidegger is far easier than Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. The only person more difficult is Hegel and that's because it's vapid nonsense like Finnegan's Wake.

[Anonymous No.6284950]

>>6284928
complex is not valuable
Moderate realism is still best to encompass all of natural science but also rise up to the speculation of abstract general objects and establish metaphysics as a fundamental science

[Anonymous No.6284952]

>>6284945
Hegel is easier than Kant, friend.

[Anonymous No.6284955]

>>6284862

Berkeley requires God, though. His entire position rests on God.

[Anonymous No.6284957]

>>6284955
Problem?

[Anonymous No.6284963]

>>6284899
>>6284950
>not realising Berkeley is a spiritual realist

[Anonymous No.6284965]

>>6284955
i mean to say that things remain constant in Berkeley's worldview in virtue of God perceiving them. It is a roundabout way to assert that God must exist, which is not all that different from the idea that things in themselves exist.

[Anonymous No.6284971]

>>6284963
that position requires a presupposition that must be asserted.

[Anonymous No.6284993]

>>6284965
There is an importance difference though. Without an explanation of phenomena, we are left with two kinds of beings - spirits and ideas. From this position, the assertion of a God is simpler than the assertion of matter because there is no evidence for matter anywhere whereas we know with certainty that spiritual substance exists (ourselves).

[Anonymous No.6285006]

>philosophy class in school
>the professor is an obvious tipper, he even mentions it proudly a few times in his lectures
>he says how we will be skipping Berkeley because of time constraints
Kek

[Anonymous No.6285009]

>>6285006
And that is why I chose a Catholic college
>mfw philosophy curriculum jumps over the whole middle ages or mentions augustine and aquinas a little bit
Absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous No.6285019]

>>6285009
I swear these classes aren't even remotely objective. While we're on Augustine and Aquinas, when it comes to middle age philosophy, we quickly went through Augustine, mentioned Aquinas only a little (skipped on his ethics and other shit), and also skipped over some things like William of Ockham.
For example, when we were talking about Anaximander and his Nous, the professor said how it's definitely not god (that's also what it says in the textbook, which is shit and also non-objective, for example when it comes to Hegelians, the right hegelians aren't mentioned at all, and some theistic philosophers are shat upon).

[Anonymous No.6285025]

>>6285019
>Philosophy Textbooks
I hope you guys have read from Plato and Aristotle directly at least.

[Anonymous No.6285026]

>>6285019
It's widely assumed that most people who take intros to philosophy won't read Hegel - who in his own published work is clearly a massive conservative - so the emphasis on the Young Hegelians is to trick rubes into believing he was a progressive.

[Anonymous No.6285028]

>>6285025
>I hope you guys have read from Plato and Aristotle directly at least
Sadly, no. I personally have read some of Plato's work, but even though I want to get more into him and Aristotle, or any philosopher in general, I don't like reading them in english as it's not my first language, and my library has little to no philosophy stuff.
Keep in mind I'm 19 and these are high school classes which I have 3 times a week so it's explainable why we don't read original philosophical works.

>>6285026
I suspected as much.

[Anonymous No.6285063]

>>6284957
>things in themselves cannot not exist upon assertion

>god can exist in itself upon assertion

no problem at all

[Anonymous No.6285064]

>>6285063
I still see no problem at all.

[Anonymous No.6285091]

>>6285063
God's existence is more plausible than the existence of matter because we already know spiritual substance to exist.

[Anonymous No.6285096]

>>6285026
they basically studied Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy rather than the texts of the philosophers
proofs:
http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Hegel,+Georg+Wilhelm+Friedrich/Vorlesungen+%C3%BCber+die+Geschichte+der+Philosophie/Erster+Teil%3A+Griechische+Philosophie/Erster+Abschnitt.+Von+Thales+bis+Aristoteles/Erstes+Kapitel.+Von+Thales+bis+Anaxagoras/A.+Philosophie+der+Ionier/2.+Anaximander

[Anonymous No.6285099]

>>6285064
U pleb bro?

[Anonymous No.6285111]

>>6285028
stop being a pleb, I finished Plato's corpus at 18

[Anonymous No.6285116]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/#3.2.6

[Anonymous No.6285142]

>>6284928
>complex

You mean inflated to the point of flatulence? The Huns are scatological.

[Anonymous No.6285179]

Absolute idealism > subjective idealism

[Anonymous No.6285286]

>>6285179
Slajov pls go

[Anonymous No.6285334]

>>6284862
>material world is nothing but a spook.
>spook.

Your satisfaction with interpreting Berkeley with a Stirnerian meme is absolutely disgusting.

[Anonymous No.6285386]

>>6285334
'Spook' isn't a meme. It can't be because memes are themselves spooks.

[Anonymous No.6285401]

>>6284884
>not being a solipsist
>implying i'm real

[Anonymous No.6285407]

>>6284862

[Anonymous No.6285441]

>>6285091
What is spiritual substance as you are referring to it?

[Anonymous No.6285456]

>>6285441
Us.

[Anonymous No.6285469]

berkeley and descartes were btfo by Hume

Kant was just the typical german reaction to something new (Hume). He just wanted to scavage anything that could be saved from Idealism, he was totally scared at the idea that his foundation on everything was fundamentally flawed

If anything Idealism is pure cancer, i don't know how much time i have wasted thinking on saving a position like Idealism when it's a bag filled with nothing but assumptions on god

[Anonymous No.6285473]

>>6285456

>implying

[Anonymous No.6285481]

>>6285456
>2015
>not being a physicalist

[Anonymous No.6285740]

>>6284862

Are you the same Berkleyean cheerleader who seems to start this same thread every few weeks?

Even if you're not, can you tell me if (and if so, how) Berkeley's system, like Kant's, allows for the subject to distinguish between merely subjective apprehension and objective apprehension?

[Anonymous No.6285754]

>>6285469
But anon, Kant BTFO Hume, you're just mad because you're too Anglo for idealism.

[Anonymous No.6285864]

>>6284903

>>reason is limited by experience

Not true in Kant's system, especially in the context of the question of noumena.

Reason in its practical use encounters the noumenal freedom of the will as a fact, and then must postulate the immortality of the soul and god (both likewise noumenal) for logical consistency.

It's only in its theoretical use that reason is confined to the conditions of a possible experience.

[Anonymous No.6285890]

>>6284881
>shakespeare
>not a secret catholic

[Anonymous No.6285907]

>>6285019
anaxagoras is the one with nous.

[Anonymous No.6285949]

>>6285019
>tfw you've become a theist and decided you were glad to have been raised Catholic since you started going to your horrifically liberal state school and your Marxist history professors blame the Church for all of the problems non-Catholics face in America
>tfw your philosophy classes are full of tippers
>tfw your professors never go into the specific ideas of God that philosophers have and wrote off theism as a workaround they use to defend an inconsistent or untenable position

[Anonymous No.6285958]

>>6285026
My school doesn't even teach Hegel in the philosophy department, he's someone they mention in passing in sociology classes when they introduce Marx.

[Anonymous No.6286004]

>>6284957
God doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.6286023]

>>6285864
Or rather, it encounters the (bindingness of) the moral law as a fact (see 2nd Critique). But why don't we need to establish its objectivity via a transcendental deduction?

[Anonymous No.6286026]

>>6285091
>we already know spiritual substance to exist

Define 'spiritual substance'. Give us an experiment by which the veracity of its existence is separated from the falsity, and based on what this separation is made

[Anonymous No.6286077]

>>6285019
This thread is depressing. I apologize for the inflammatory comment but in my honest opinion (I am not an atheist either), the "marxist feminist tipper-fedora professor" is generally smarter than the poster by several orders of magnitude.The whole catholicism circle-jerk on /lit/ seems like the symptom of the average poster's IQ dropping tremendously over the years. How is anyone supposed to take seriously your judgment "these classes aren't even remotely objective", considering you don't even have the brain power to remember that the Nous is in Anaxagoras? Maybe if you were smarter or studied more intently you would be in a position to determine wether calling the Nous "not god" is an objective position.

And no one corrects you either? Fuck, /lit/, what kind of strange echo-chamber bullshit will we muster over time if we have all these ignorant loud-mouths screeching in our ears? I'm not saying I am better but at least I fact check the most basic elements of my post... I apologize again for the inflammatory remarks, tons of you guys are great.

[Anonymous No.6286085]

>>6286077
>Implying this wouldn't be a Marxist/leftist echo chamber without the Christ posting
>Implying the professor stereotype isn't entirely accurate
>Implying no one corrected his mistake

[Anonymous No.6286127]

>>6285740
>Even if you're not, can you tell me if (and if so, how) Berkeley's system, like Kant's, allows for the subject to distinguish between merely subjective apprehension and objective apprehension?
Why is it necessary for a philosophical system to do such a thing?

[Anonymous No.6286131]

>>6284862
No one argues that, the reason nobody gives a shit what Berkeley said is because it's a dead end. Also, German idealism is 1000x more interesting

[Anonymous No.6286136]

>>6284896
Kant literally says they may not exist, dur

[Anonymous No.6286144]

>>6284909
G4u, find someone else to bother with your shitty, unimportant philosophy

[Anonymous No.6286151]

>>6284993
>There is an importance difference though. Without an explanation of phenomena, we are left with two kinds of beings - spirits and ideas. From this position, the assertion of a God is simpler than the assertion of matter because there is no evidence for matter anywhere whereas we know with certainty that spiritual substance exists (ourselves).

lol and you even take yourself seriously

[Anonymous No.6286156]

>>6285006
Are you at MSJC

[Anonymous No.6286167]

>>6285091
Lol only faggots take that argument seriously

[Anonymous No.6286172]

>>6285386
Why do you post

[Anonymous No.6286236]

>>6285890
>Nietzsche
>not a secret gay

[Anonymous No.6286297]

>>6286023

>Or rather, it encounters the (bindingness of) the moral law as a fact

Clarification noted, since practical reason only infers the freedom of the will from this, as inferring "can" from "ought."

>But why don't we need to establish its objectivity via a transcendental deduction?

It's been a year since I read that part of the Critique of Practical Reason, so I don't remember for sure and I'd feel like a cheat if I referred back to the text right now. But I'd say that the freedom of the will doesn't need to be transcendentally justified because its possibility (technically its thinkability) has already been established in the Critique of Pure Reason by the resolution of the third antinomy.

[Anonymous No.6286313]

>>6286127

I'd like OP to answer my question first, if s/he can (and if Berkeley's system can in fact accommodate such a distinction - I personally haven't studied Berkeley enough to be sure), since if I explain the importance of the distinction it would give OP too much of a hint.

[Anonymous No.6287893]

>>6284896

You literally haven't understood the first two critiques (giving you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to even having read them). Kant's arguments might not convince you, but to claim that they were never made just cripples your credibility.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant holds to the view that the human faculty of reason constantly seeks conditions to explain the conditioned (like when we seek a cause to explain an object in the world, and when we seek another cause to explain that cause, and so on indefinitely). Reason seeks to completely explain this series of conditions, which it can only do with something totally unconditioned - but such a thing can never be found in experience, since experience is always conditioned (by space and time, for example). So reason must postulate an unconditioned ground for phenomena, and this ground is the thing-in-itself, which we must think as the correlate of appearances, although we can't know that it exists or does not exist, as partially pointed out by >>6286136


(This post >>6284900 quotes the beginning of the Critique of Pure Reason, which only introduces the claim that appearances must correlate with something that appears, rather than offering the extended argument found later in the book.)

Then, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that our nature as humans is not limited to the deterministic causality of the phenomenal world; our immediate awareness of moral obligation reveals that we are at the same time agents whose phenomenal actions are grounded in noumenally free wills. And just like in its theoretical capacity, reason in its practical capacity seeks the unconditioned, this time as a moral goal, called the highest good. The highest good is that idea which would completely satisfy both the goal of our rational nature (as moral agents) and the goal our sensible nature (as animals with inclinations); together, these goals amount to happiness distributed to all moral agents in accordance with the degree of their moral virtue (their worthiness to be happy). This leads practical reason to postulate a being that can perform this distribution of happiness according to morality - a being with omniscience and omnipotence - and also to postulate an unending progress of all agents towards moral perfection, which cannot occur within the limits of earthly life. Thus god and immortal souls are two other things-in-themselves that, in addition to free wills, reason must believe in if it is to maintain logical consistency.

tl;dr >>6284862>>6284896
>>6284903 are largely bullshit

[Anonymous No.6288076]

>>6287893
>tl;dr >>6284862 (OP)>>6284896
>>>6284903 are largely bullshit

They're bullshit except that they say literally the exact same thing you just said only they don't dress mere assertion up as 'postulation'.

[Anonymous No.6288147]

>>6288076

Nope. Each postulate is built into a complex argument; none of them stand alone from supportive premises and inferences, as a mere assertion would.

[Anonymous No.6288327]

It never ceases to amaze me how few of these threads end with somebody doing the socially responsible thing and saying "Nobody gives a fuck, go ride a bike and kiss girls, aspies."

[Anonymous No.6288449]

>>6288076
give it up, hack

[Anonymous No.6288450]

>>6288327
>being or wanting to be 'socially responsible'
lmaoo

[Anonymous No.6288452]

>>6288327
probably because they realise that

>you will never kiss a girl

[Anonymous No.6288454]

>>6288327

As if that's some golden ticket for a fulfilling, happy life. Plenty of people have gone down that route and ended up miserable. Plenty of other people have ended up satisfied. Maybe you'd be less amazed if you recognized how simplistic and presumptuous you're being.

Life is a game of dice no matter what choices we make. I'll pursue the things that I find interesting and worthwhile, you choose your version of the same, and as long as we aren't hurting other people, let's live and let live, without pretending that either of us has a monopoly on the good life.

[Anonymous No.6288469]

>>6288327
Actually the socially responsible thing is violent overthrow of the bourgeois, and pure idealism has a really funny way of getting in the way of that sort of thing.

[Anonymous No.6288543]

>>6288454
Lol dude your voice, it's annoying. You sound so self righteous

[Anonymous No.6288685]

>>6288450
>implying anybody in this thread isn't hiding behind their favorite diction

>>6288454
I know exactly how simplistic and presumptuous I'm being. Get out of your head and into your body.

>>6288469
Part of the problem is that the bourgeoisie is no longer visible, let alone discernable. They put a bunch of proles in NorthFace jackets and gave us the runaround a long time ago.

[Anonymous No.6288702]

>>6288469
It really doesn't because the majority of proles don't have a fucking clue what pure idealism is, and there is no way they would have the patience to wrap their head around it by reading the requisite material.

[Anonymous No.6288724]

>>6288702
Pure idealism is a worthless dead end philosophy

It's virtually tautologous

[Anonymous No.6288731]

>>6285091
>we already know spiritual substance to exist.
>literally the first paralogism lf pure reason
And that's what happens when people shit on Kant without having read him.

[Anonymous No.6289498]

>>6288731

Good catch.

[Anonymous No.6289634]

>>6288731
>>6289498
>one KIDF faggot samefagging to congratulate himself on some worthless "observation" that in no way touches the truth of Bishop George Berkeley's philosophy

[Anonymous No.6289725]

>>6289634

>samefagging

Nope.

> in no way touches the truth of Bishop George Berkeley's philosophy

This assertion might be true, but until you provide details to support it, I don't see how Berkeley can escape Kant's counter-arguments in his section on paralogisms: just because we have a persisting self-consciousness doesn't mean that our fundamental self is a persisting substance; just because the pure representation "I think" is not composed of content doesn't mean that our fundamental self is simple and incorruptible; etc.

[Anonymous No.6291765]

>>6285740
>>6286313

Still waiting for OP.

[Anonymous No.6291781]

Just a solipsist passing by...

[Anonymous No.6291796]

>>6291781
more like ellipsist...

[SYK FUK RUKUS No.6291891]

>>6285949

>...and your Marxist history professors blame the Church for all of the problems non-Catholics face in America

How does it even logically connect? I mean in America? What's the reasoning behind it of all countries how non-Catholics can be discriminated upon in fucking US of A.

Also, has anyone ever read Berkeley's and Kierkegaard's political philo essays? I picked upon the latter few days ago and I was a bit blown away. While Berkeley remains a monarchist conservative, quite common for his day and age, Kierkegaard is a hardline right-winger to the point of being a cunt (for instance ridiculing women's rights movement), he's quite slick in his critique I can't say he's not, but still... I would never suspect Kierks to be that bitter and fierce against "progressive" movements in Denmark.

[Anonymous No.6292192]

>>6291891
What works on or by materalists have you read?

[Anonymous No.6292594]

>>6291891
Which pol phil writings are you talking about in particular? It's quite difficult to get a printed edition of Berkeley's extended works anywhere. At best you usually get the New Theory of Vision and On Motion chucked in with some extracts from the tar-water chronicles.

Kierkegaard is more readily available but I simply don't know which texts to read for his politics. My knowledge of Soren is limited to Fear and Trembling and Either/Or.

[Anonymous No.6292719]

>>6292594

Berkeley's entirety of political thought is included in his tract "Passive Obedience" which seems that could be a constitution of hardline royalism.

Now Kierkegaard's social and political commentary is included in Either/Or in Seducer's Diary, but also in a short essay ridiculing women's emancipation titled "Another Defense of Women's Great Abilities". To be honest Kierks has written lots of short essays which of some were translated to English, some were not. His political thought is especially present in "Our Journalistic Literature: A Study from Nature in Noonday Light", "Letter to Mrs. Lehmann" or "A Psychological View of Adler as a Phenomenon and as a Satire on Hegelian Philosophy and the Present Age" where he puts French Revolution under heavy fire. Kierkegaard Center associated with Jon Stewart (not that hag from daily show) has some of these texts. Many of these essays stem from Kierkegaard's conflict with a satirical paper "The Corsair" that he said following of: “The Corsair is, of course, a Jewish rebellion against the Christians,” which had a constituency only among “Jew businessmen, shop clerks, prostitutes, schoolboys, butcher boys, et cetera” (>inb4 back to /pol/)

[Anonymous No.6292729]

>>6285890
Anglicans between 1600 and 1950 were closet Catholics that fell for the retarded argument that Catholicism was "Italian". Read John Henry Newman.

[Anonymous No.6292735]

>>6292719

>if Kierkegaard lived today /lit/ would send him back to /pol/

[Anonymous No.6292756]

>>6292735
They would send back to /pol/ pretty much every relevant thinker if they jnew what they wrote and not some cherry picked extract.

An example from experience :
>Lit professor about Voltaire (I'm French so we suck his dick more than anglos, and I study math but we have these courses anyway)
>Give the impression that he is some revolutionnary with nothing but progressive ideals
>Quote extensively from the little tract he made against "fanatics" and on "tolerance"
>Insist on calling him a deist as opposed to a Christian
>the guy was actually faithful and spend a small fortune building himself a chapel in his retreat where he spent a large part of the day in his old age
>Was an early proponent of biological "racist" studies
>Is libertarian, ikes Turgot and despise redistribution collectivists
>Still accepts the slave system in Haiti (richest part of America then) because he considered nigs too retarded

[Anonymous No.6292804]

>>6292756

Well I agree with everything you've written as Voltaire was a proponent of the view that black people are actually a completly different species to white people and what's more they carry "little to no intelligence". On top of that he was an absolutist monarchist and not only distrusted, but also ridiculued democracy. That all being said I'd say that he was in fact a deist rather than Christian. I've never encountered evidence that would suggest he embraced Christian doctrine and for instance despised clergy. I know that he was a staunch defender of watchmaker argument so here's that.

[Anonymous No.6292844]

>>6286077
I'm the Anon you responded to. It's true that I don't have much knowledge in philosophy, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize people being subjective. I still believe what I said.
If what you said about Nous is correct, then it's my fault that I haven't researched it on the internet, because in my textbook it's not mentioned that Nous is inside Anaxagoras. I'll translate a segment:
"For Anaxagoras, that is Nous (mind). But that definitely shouldn't be understood as god like the creator of the universe. Firstly, he doesn't create from nothing, he shapes the existing pre-cosmic compound, and secondly, Nous is, like everything existing, material, it's just that he is homogeneous (as opposed to the variety in spermatas)"
Maybe I was too stupid to understand, and it is implied that Nous is inside Anaxagoras?

[Anonymous No.6292854]

>>6292756
So besides the religious chapel he was an astute thinker

[Anonymous No.6292957]

>>6292804
Mocking some of the clergy and the "devoted" was not a sign of irreligion.
For spefifically Christianity, you can look on his writings such as One Christian against Six Jews (don't know how it was translated in English).

Yes, cause he was hardine anti-semitic too. Seriously, Voltaire is /pol/ incarnate. He is the perfect example of how confirmation bias can completely distort the image of someone.

[Anonymous No.6293262]

>>6289725
>>6291765

Two ways in which Berkeley's system remains undefended in this thread.

[Anonymous No.6293279]

>idealism
>berkeley

literally cancer

[Anonymous No.6293549]

>>6286313

dude idealism collapses both objectivity and subjectivity. if there is no thing seen then there is also no seer - there is just sight. this is what idealism is about, so you could never make distinctions in the formless oneness of mind.

[Anonymous No.6293555]

lol i always stay away from berkeley, even tho he's recommended a lot. didn't he say the world was a cartoon or soomething? lmao

[Anonymous No.6293820]

>>6293549

>idealism collapses both objectivity and subjectivity

I don't think idealism automatically destroys this distinction, so much as redefines it; there might be some kinds of idealism in which the distinction truly becomes meaningless, but this isn't the case for Kant's idealism, and I from what I've read about Hegel's idealism it isn't the case for it either.

The issue addressed by Kant's distinction between subjective apprehension and objective apprehension is part of how subjectivity and objectivity can be distinguished in his system. The issue is how the perceiver (subject) can recognize the difference between a series of perceptions that s/he has control over and could thus perceive in a different order (subjective apprehension), and a series that s/he does not have control over because it is necessarily ordered in one way (objective apprehension). Kant gives the example of apprehending a house versus apprehending a boat traveling downriver; in the first case I can walk around and perceive the walls and roof in whatever order I choose, while in the second case I must perceive the boat in one location upriver before perceiving it at a letter time in a different location downriver.

Part of Kant's criticism of Hume is that his psychology offers no explanation for how we, as subjects, could even think of a difference between subjective apprehension and objective apprehension, which we self-evidently can do (unless you can't think of a difference between, say, moving your head from side to side while looking at the stars, and the stars themselves flying back and forth in outer space). My still unanswered question to OP is how Berkeley's idealism can escape this same criticism leveled against Hume.

>if there is no thing seen then there is also no seer - there is just sight

But for Kant's idealism, there IS a thing seen: empirically, the thing seen is the spatiotemporal object - it's just that this object does not exist independently of human minds; transcendentally, the thing seen is a noumenon, which means it isn't seen directly but is necessarily postulated as the correlate of the immediately seen empirical object.

[Anonymous No.6295794]

>>6293262

Bumping for OP.

[Anonymous No.6295910]

>>6292729
Catholicism is Italian. Look at how many other big bishops made their own church. The Orthodox Church, The Assyrian Church, and the Coptic Church.

[Anonymous No.6295929]

>>6292729
Anglicanism had an immense current of reformists in it. Your statement is obviously erroneous, or else Matthew Parker wouldn't have had to deal with shit like bishops refusing to wear vestments.

[Anonymous No.6295947]

>>6284884
BTFO

[Anonymous No.6295952]

>>6295947
Le Absolute. Not a subject idealist idea, but it still fits in perfectly with immaterialism. Other consciousness is just our idea of it, because it is all ultimately one consciousness perceiving itself.

[Anonymous No.6295961]

>>6295952
subjective* idealism

[Anonymous No.6295964]

How does idealism avoid solipsism?

I experience others, and yet, somehow, others also have some sort of transcendent experience in relationship to the people I interact with around me.

Like, if esse is percepi, then people cease when I'm not thinking about them/sensory experiencing them.

And like why not just cave someone's skull in? It's not there's any pain to be felt by them..

[Anonymous No.6295972]

>>6295952
>Other consciousness is just our idea of it, because it is all ultimately one consciousness perceiving itself.

lol le univers is perceiving itself

I like how you snuck in "our idea", nice.

But no, there is no "our" idea. It's either mine or yours.

[Anonymous No.6295978]

>>6285019
Fedoras don't want their entire class becoming Catholic once Aquinas is unleashed

[Anonymous No.6295983]

>>6284862
Are you seriously implying that the omniperception of God is a valid argument, or that it isnt a spook for that manner?

[Anonymous No.6295992]

>>6295972
There is "universe" *but* consciousness, at least from my perspective. Hegel was a dualist (and a monist!), but I'm not. Hegel's contention was of course that all distinction in matter is purely a mental projection, everything is one we just draw distinctions on it with our mind; but then why different consciousnesses? Well of course those can be idealist distinctions as well, just like talking to yourself, to the point that you're crazy, even. But then there is no point to assume anything we're drawing onto, it's all drawings. God is the level of the Absolute consciousness which knows as all consciousness is one, whereas souls like us are at level that even if we can understand the idea of that, we cannot fully operate on it. Just as individual consciousness is very complex and can harbor all sorts of conflicting thoughts and identities, thus the Absolute.

[Anonymous No.6296026]

>>6295964
Because God perceives everything which is why you cant change the world with your mind and why reality appears to be objective.

[Anonymous No.6296028]

>>6295992
YOU SOUND LIKE A FUCKING RETARD

[Anonymous No.6296846]

Also for >>6295964 and similar,
"esse is percepi" does not imply anything about controlling the world. If someone has a moral notion about not killing a guy, what does having "solipsism" change to that.

My guess (correct me if I'm wrong) is that you imagine someone being convinced of solipsism and then bashing the guy's skull because he doesn't see it as wrong then.

First, imagine seeing a dummy that, at first sight, you think is a man. You would consider him in a particular manner, for instance by not bashing his skull. Then you realize that it is a dummy. This step is important because it shows that what you considered "hardcoded" as "being someone else" is PURELY a judgment of relevance based on experience. It soesn't matter at all whether this is done in an intellectual manner (very rare) or from a gut feeling (virtually always).

Now, solipsism either change the passive experience of seeing the "man", and thus is proof enough of it being a spook. Or it doesn't change the passive experience of seeing the "man". In which case the guy in front of you will still be considered a man and no change of practical importance will ensue.

Put another way, what you call "someone else" is a reference for a code of behavior. Whether or not a object of experience calls for this type of hebavior is determined by you experience of it and your judgment about it. Like you don't work the same with iron or copper.

PS : I'm not solipsist at all, but solipsism doesn't have the kind of consequence you give ti it. Also idealism and solipsism have no connexion like you say.

[Anonymous No.6297014]

>>6293820
>unless you can't think of a difference between, say, moving your head from side to side while looking at the stars, and the stars themselves flying back and forth in outer space
The first involves your own spiritual agency whereas the second depends on God's. Simple.

[Anonymous No.6297021]

>>6295964
>Like, if esse is percepi, then people cease when I'm not thinking about them/sensory experiencing them.
Esse is percepi is not something Berkeley ever wrote, and the passage from which it is adapted refers only to senuous ideas. Read the first chapter of Roberts's A Metaphysica for the Mob.

[Anonymous No.6298629]

>>6293820
Oh give it up you fucking Kantfag. Nobody is impressed by your dogmatic adoption of a two hundred year old dead-end philosophy. Berkelian immaterialism is on the cutting edge, get used to it.

[Anonymous No.6299127]

>>6298629
>Nobody is impressed by your dogmatic adoption of a two hundred year old dead-end philosophy

Irony aside why must you be so obnoxious in all these similarly facetious threads? Would it not make sense to simply apply Berkely's reasoning in other threads or at least post a bit more about his theories?

[Anonymous No.6301290]

>>6299127
Sorry if I'm being dense, but what is ironic about what he said?

[Anonymous No.6301316]

>>6301290
I see the irony being that you would not expect someone who makes claims like "Bishop Berkeley was right about literally everything" to deride another for being dogmatic with an old thinker.

[Anonymous No.6301336]

The philosopher one read most recently is the philosopher who is right about literally everything.

[Anonymous No.6301342]

>>6301336
Nope I just got done re-reading Kant and, as has been said by others many times in this thread, his "refutation" of Berkeleyan subjective idealism is incredibly weak.

[Anonymous No.6301752]

>>6284862
Can you link something?

[Anonymous No.6303192]

>>6301752
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/Hylas/

Enjoy

[Anonymous No.6303371]

Can someone explain Berkeley's deal to me real quick? Philpleb checking in.

[Anonymous No.6303444]

>>6303371
All sensible ideas are mind-dependent because the idea of a sense - understood as a phenomenon of perception - cannot exist outside of the mind. Therefore we are left with no reason to believe in the existence of 'matter' beyond the mind since all qualities of physical object, including alleged primary qualities like extention, are sensuous. The only substance which exists is spirit, and experience is a linguistic medium through which we are in constant communion with an infinite spirit, God.

[Anonymous No.6303456]

>>6303444
Then how are we communicating with each other?

[Anonymous No.6303462]

>>6303456
I'm not sure how this is a problem that arises from what Berkeley is saying?

[Anonymous No.6303465]

ITT: people falling for paralogisms because they haven't made it through the transcendental dialectic.

[Anonymous No.6303510]

>>6303444
>cannot exist outside of the mind.

What does that actually mean for Berkley?

What is an infinite spirit compared to a regular spirit?

What is the source of all this information our mind receives?

[Anonymous No.6303631]

>>6303444
How can you prove the only substance that exists is spirit?

[Anonymous No.6303674]

>>6303462
If the mind is all that exists, if there's no physical reality, how do I know anyone else exists? Am I actually communicating with you right now or are you a figment of my imagination?

[Anonymous No.6305029]

>>6303192
Thanks buddy

[Anonymous No.6305050]

>>6303444
Wow, yes, I'm pretty on board with this line of reasoning. It sounds like my own views kind of, agnostic (in that there can be no definiteness of knowing about external world, we are it and are viewing it through sensory apparatus which is not objective at all) magical thinking, spiritual (in that the world is God and we are too) cool nice person. So am I programmed by some super old monk guy

[Anonymous No.6305104]

>>6305050
What are you thoughts on this test then?

" Three people are sent into a room one by one. The are not allowed to communicate at all during the experiment. In that room is a sheet of paper with five sentences written on it. While in that room, they must copy those five sentences exactly as they see them onto a new sheet of paper and put it in an envelope. After all three people have done so, the envelopes are opened and the writing compared. They should all match up. You would expect them to, at least 99% of the time. Does that not prove the physical existence of the original piece of paper and the writing thereon? There was no consensus between the three test subjects during the experiment yet they all experienced the same reality."

[Anonymous No.6305185]

>>6305104
>Does that not prove the physical existence of the original piece of paper and the writing thereon?
It doesn't prove it as existing 'in matter' outside of any minds. For a start it exists in our minds as we conceive of the experiment. Secondly it exists in the mind of whoever wrote it and planned the test. Thirdly it exists in the minds of test subjects. Finally, and most importantly, it exists constantly in the mind of God.

This experiment in no way proves that there is anything to the paper other than touch, image, smell - and if you act like a retard in front of it, sound and taste. Hence it does not prove it exists beyond the mind.

[Anonymous No.6305205]

>>6305104
Thank you for the question. That they are experiencing the same thing is not unusual, and it does not prove physical reality. The dice are loaded: 'physical reality' is a very difficult term to work with. There is physicality. There is perhaps reality. 'Physical reality' imfers that it is the ultimate layer of reality? I am not sure what it is supposed to be. Is physicality solidity? Is it a clockwork-principle? Then it is a cure for anxiety about uncertainty and complexity. There is no conflict here. They are experiencing the same sensory input, but it does not inform us of the ultimate nature of the thing that generated the input, or of the world.

[Anonymous No.6305257]

>>6303444
Thanks man.

[Anonymous No.6305501]

>>6303510
Bumping for an answer to the above

[Anonymous No.6305505]

>>6305205
>They are experiencing the same sensory input, but it does not inform us of the ultimate nature of the thing that generated the input, or of the world.

If the source of such output can be objective isn't adding an entire metaphysical layer of relatively unnecessary?

[Anonymous No.6305519]

>>6284971
not if you don't want to go to hell, nerd.

[Anonymous No.6305709]

>>6285401
Occam's razor bruh
Maybe you don't exist, but you most likely do.

[Anonymous No.6305720]

>>6305505
Alright, I said they are experiencing the same input which is of course not right, it is similar.
I do not agree that the source can be objective to us, because where is objectivity? What is it? Whom possess it? How do I achieve it? Everything is filtered through a sensory apparatus, and then it is put together into an approximation of an image of the world. The paper in the test is perceived similarly by the people, at least similarly enough for the printed messages to be transmitted later (we can not really know what they are experiencing exactly, and to be sure perception differs between people). Does the coherence of their report compel me to generalize about the world? No.

In short I think it is unnecessary to assume many things about the paper and the world. For instance: You are in a room. There is a blue ball sitting on the ground. Is this the whole world?

We can assume they all read the message, but what more is there to learn from it? The world does not operate by what is necessarily the least contrived philosophical or metaphysical explanation, it has it's own rules and stuff going on.

That I think the world is kind of magical, spiritual place is something that I have not deduced from your experiment, but from other experiences and observations from my life. I know that bats have very different perceptions than I (different senses), and I know that there is a large spectrum of light outside of my visual range. Some other creatures can see more, or less than I. The most modern analogy to what I kind of think is that we are in a simulation. Perhaps the underlying code would be spirit, then.

[Anonymous No.6305767]

>>6288469
>>6288685
>>6288702

>Why are other people rich and I'm not? Better go steal their money!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO-Eji8oskw

[Anonymous No.6305770]

>>6305505
>If the source of such output can be objective isn't adding an entire metaphysical layer of relatively unnecessary?
Asserting the existence of matter is the superfluous metaphysical move, not denying it.

[Anonymous No.6305827]

What happens when you die? Are you uniform with God then? What place does man's mind take up in the singularity of everything?

I read Derrida"s "The Gift of Death". It argues that, since Plato, we took an orgiastic mystery of an outside world and made it responsible to us and so made it an inner world, something that was external into internal, yet there still is an orgiastic mystery we don't know(if we did we wouldn't ask). So, how God can be above me in singularity when he is me?

[Anonymous No.6305830]

>>6284862
Berkeley was a retard lol

[Anonymous No.6307020]

>>6305830
Bitter Kantfaggot srsly pls go it's getting cringey now.

[Anonymous No.6307713]

>>6305770
>because where is objectivity? What is it? Whom possess it? How do I achieve it?

Material objects that exist independently of our experience and perception of them.

>Everything is filtered through a sensory apparatus, and then it is put together into an approximation of an image of the world

In a fairly ordered way which is what the paper test demonstrates.

>paper in the test is perceived similarly by the people, at least similarly enough for the printed messages to be transmitted later

Why is that the case though if there is no objective material world external to them?

>we can not really know what they are experiencing exactly, and to be sure perception differs between people)

We can to a very good extent because in the test you ask them to write down exactly what they perceived.

>You are in a room. There is a blue ball sitting on the ground. Is this the whole world?

Not unless you have a very different understanding of the term world.

>We can assume they all read the message, but what more is there to learn from it?

That there is a objective reality external to us that exists independently of our perceptions. There may be different interpretations of that reality but it still ultimately exists which is why the paper test is so consistent.

>That I think the world is kind of magical, spiritual place is something that I have not deduced from your experiment, but from other experiences and observations from my life.

Why must a material understanding of reality conflict with this?

>. I know that bats have very different perceptions than I (different senses), and I know that there is a large spectrum of light outside of my visual range. Some other creatures can see more, or less than I.

All of which is used to perceive the same material world that we experience.

>he most modern analogy to what I kind of think is that we are in a simulation. Perhaps the underlying code would be spirit, then.

Why do you need idealism to justify this? Is your whole rejection of materialist thought simply because it provides a simpler answer to your desires?

>Asserting the existence of matter is the superfluous metaphysical move, not denying it.

But it isnt as if you take the idealist route you have to go to great and odd lengths to explain the seemingly objective nature of reality and physical laws. You have to create uncreated creators who dont require perception or else you fall into solpihism or the idea that everything *must* be an illusion because unless it were otherwise your theory would not work.

[Anonymous No.6307842]

>>6307713
>Oh boy

>Material objects that exist independently of our experience and perception of them.
Prove or justify this somehow. And please stop equating material existence with objectivity. I am saying "Objectivity is a pipe dream. I cannot, have not, and possibly will never, experience it. Why assume it exists? Why? There is an object, a thing - a chair. You observe it, photosensitive hardware in your eyes catch reflections of light streaming off the thing, sending neural signals to your brain which composes an image of what you have experienced. This is all. That's it. It might not even be a chair, it may well be a picture of a chair. Or, when you cease to observe it a second later, perhaps it teleports away (very unlikely, I admit, but do NOT ASSUME if you do not need to. Who knows what the space aliens you never knew about will do). Perhaps it will simply grow bored with existence and cease to exist by itself. What do you know? Perhaps it's a sentient, self-teleporting fucking chair. When you are not looking, it teleports away to a beautiful chair-vacation-resort, and when you look again it knows about it and teleports back. Such is the way of this chair. Prove to me that this does not happen.
>In a fairly ordered way which is what the paper test demonstrates.
Agreed, fairly ordered.
>Why is that the case though if there is no objective material world external to them?
Beats me. It's just that things we write down tend to stay written down, until it gets erased.
>We can to a very good extent because in the test you ask them to write down exactly what they perceived.
Not quite; they wrote down what they perceived they read on the paper. Not exactly what they perceived, which is impossible. We cannot communicate that, as any writer knows it is exceedingly hard to communicate even simple things succinctly (like there was a thread earlier about writing about someone running. Not as easy as it sounds), and completely impossible to either realize all that we perceive and definitely to communicate it to someone else. They simply copied a short string of retained specific information from a paper, they did not transmit the full perception of their short stay in that room (impossible to my knowledge). I used the world exactly, and I meant it. You cannot to a "good extent" exactly do something.

>That there is a objective reality external to us that exists independently of our perceptions. There may be different interpretations of that reality but it still ultimately exists which is why the paper test is so consistent
I fail to see where the objective assertion comes from, and what it is grounded in. Perhaps we are using the same terms to describe different things.

Basically my argument is; We interpret the world and existence and our thoughts and just about everything I know - through our sensory apparatus, through our brains, through our souls. How can we be so presumptuous as to claim to know final about OBJECTIVE reality, when - contd.

[Anonymous No.6307936]

>>6307842
our whole existence is so firmly rooted in the SUBJECTIVE as detailed above in this same sentence. We experience material world, and it is mostly the same. But to go from mostly to objectively is presumption, assumption, and worst of all, unnecessary.

Ok, I feel we're getting into the good stuff.
>Why must a material understanding of reality conflict with this?
I does not. I have such an understanding, I simply try not to make metaphysical generalizations and assumptions about the general nature of reality based on my subjective experiences and the subjective collectively available knowledge of my species. We theorize, experiment, sense, think. We do not truly *know* many things, and this is no great shame because it does not seem to truly inhibit us, we advance and we correct and we learn either way.
>Why do you need idealism to justify this? Is your whole rejection of materialist thought simply because it provides a simpler answer to your desires?

Perhaps it is. In that case, would I even know? Perhaps it is you who is the bigger idealist, projecting unto me. I am not rejecting the material world, it is right here in the room with me. I am just not so sure that I know exactly what it is, and how it works. And I am trying to be aware of my own imitations. As I am trying to limit unnecessary assumption.
I am not rejecting materialistic ideology (that what we observe is the be-all-end-all of existence) for the sake of being contrarian, I just find it to be somewhat asinine.

>>Asserting the existence of matter is the superfluous metaphysical move, not denying it.
>But it isnt as if you take the idealist route you have to go to great and odd lengths to explain the seemingly objective nature of reality and physical laws. You have to create uncreated creators who dont require perception or else you fall into solpihism or the idea that everything *must* be an illusion because unless it were otherwise your theory would not work.

That wasn't me. But since I agree, I think, I'll defend the position. You said something here.
"Great and odd lengths", I think we have the crux of the matter in this sentence. Odd. It's an odd position. Why take an odd position, when many many other people seems to share another understanding. I do it because it makes sense to me, and I never did value the position of the common man much.
But mark my words, I do not have to create creators, why should I? It is not elegant. I do not assume there is any kind of creator, afterlife or such thing (although there seem to be some kind of mass of tangential evidence building up regarding near death experiences but idk about that, really). You are assuming things again, but I am also at fault for explaining myself poorly and incompletely, surely. But most of all I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for having this dialogue and asking these questions so that I can further find out and define what it is I really think, and to learn new things, thanks buddy.

[Anonymous No.6307965]

>>6307842
>And please stop equating material existence with objectivity

Isnt it more rational to do that than assume the following about the chair

". Perhaps it will simply grow bored with existence and cease to exist by itself. What do you know? Perhaps it's a sentient, self-teleporting fucking chair. When you are not looking, it teleports away to a beautiful chair-vacation-resort, and when you look again it knows about it and teleports back. Such is the way of this chair."

Given the leap this makes shouldnt the burden of proof lie with you to make a postive demonstration rather than for myself to prove a negative?

>Beats me. It's just that things we write down tend to stay written down, until it gets erased.

This relates to my first point

>Not quite; they wrote down what they perceived they read on the paper. Not exactly what they perceived, which is impossible. We cannot communicate that, as any writer knows it is exceedingly hard to communicate even simple things succinctly (like there was a thread earlier about writing about someone running. Not as easy as it sounds), and completely impossible to either realize all that we perceive and definitely to communicate it to someone else. They simply copied a short string of retained specific information from a paper, they did not transmit the full perception of their short stay in that room (impossible to my knowledge). I used the world exactly, and I meant it. You cannot to a "good extent" exactly do something.

Isnt this moving the goalpost? wasnt the test just to see if they could record what they perceived in relation to the writing on the paper alone? Why is there such a great amount of consistency if personal perception is what is dominant.

> We interpret the world and existence and our thoughts and just about everything I know - through our sensory apparatus, through our brains, through our souls.

Though Im not sold on the soul idea *nothing* you have said here conflicts with anything I have written.

>how can we be so presumptuous as to claim to know final about OBJECTIVE reality,

I dont say that, my argument is that the source of information that we interpret with our sensory apparatus lies in a material world. Subjective interpretation of an objective world if you like.

[Anonymous No.6307978]

>>6307936
>We experience material world, and it is mostly the same. But to go from mostly to objectively is presumption, assumption, and worst of all, unnecessary.

Wait are you the Berkly Anon?

[Anonymous No.6308027]

>>6307936

I was working under the assumption you were someone else who fully rejected the idea of there being any kind of material existence fullstop. Which might explain the nature of my posts a bit better. I wasn't projecting onto you as much as arguing with someone who is not you.

Im glad that you have found some of this helpful even If I was arguing a different premise. It idealism // materialism divide is an area that is troubling me as well and I find it hard to have conversations with other anons without it either falling into insults or the relatively complex and specialized talk like we saw earlier in the thread between Berkleyanon and Kantanon

[Anonymous No.6308072]

>>6307965
>Given the leap this makes shouldnt the burden of proof lie with you to make a postive demonstration rather than for myself to prove a negative?

Well, yes. I see the irony in that I proposed this ludicrous example but it is not so unintelligent to realize our limitations, and our limitations in knowledge and insight, and the impossibility to really *know* that it, and, fuck it, all other chairs for that matter, aren't hyper-intelligent super-aware self-teleporters. Haha. Because even if they were, we'd never know. That's how good they'd be. Do you see where I am coming from?
I am not claiming they *are* (indeed I am claiming we don't know much about what anything *is*, necessarily) but instead I am claiming that we WOULDN'T KNOW even IF THEY WERE. I do not know who has the burden of proof here, but I think I have a valid argument.

> wasnt the test just to see if they could record what they perceived in relation to the writing on the paper alone?
Yes, that was the test. But I refute the broader conclusions (generalizations about existence and it's supposed objectivity) drawn from the test
Oh shit I just read your latest there. Well it explains a lot. Also teaches one something about assumptions at least. However, we clearly don't agree anyway, since I totally do not support the idea that we can draw any kinf of objective conclusions from a simple test like that, or draw much of any objective conclusions at all, or that it is wise to do so. Objectivity is the realm of some other consciousness perhaps, but not ours. However, I would not know. Only by realizing our limitations can we approach an understanding grounded in sanity.

[Anonymous No.6309164]

>>6301316
why is Berkley cutting edge? You seem to have nailed him. And what is with all this god stuff nowadays?