4 ms·

I'm not even sure what "really is a flower" even means. Surely you'll at least agree that the concept of "flower" is a mental object that we use to classify a

I'm not even sure what "really is a flower" even means. Surely you'll at least agree that the concept of "flower" is a mental object that we use to classify a set of related sense perceptions. If you're going to call skepticism "naive" then you have to at least outline what you mean by "a flower" in relation to the experience of observing one. I think you'll find the number of propositions required is not small. > That era of philosophy had yet to learn that philosophical propositions are themselves subject to scepticism Hume's fundamental point was that even causality cannot be meaningfully verified as real so skepticism about philosophy itself was already alive and well at that point.

mjburgess 3y ago
Hume's starting premise is that we can only talk about ideas in our heads. Hume was wrong; outrageously so. > that even causality cannot be meaningfully verified as real So much for how awfully limited Hume's philosophy is. If your premises are insufficient to evidence ordinary propositions; so much for your premises. The toy model here is the deficiency, not the world. > then you have to at least outline what you mean by "a flower" I do not. Philosophy answers to reality, not the converse. When I pick up a flower, there is a flower. Our ability to put that into words may, or may not, be limited. The power of our philosophical cognition here is irrelevant. That I am holding a flower invalidates all systems of philosophical propositions which assign that proposition 'False'. Scepticism does not falsify reality, rather, it is the converse. That there are systems of propositions which succeed in accounting for the truth of ordinary such claims makes scepticism doubly absurd. There is a world. It is the cause of my perceptions. My perceptions are caused by the world they present. I learn to perceive the structure of the world because the world has that structure. And so on.
- IKantRead 3y ago
  > Scepticism does not falsify reality I don't understand why you're even making this statement, no philosophical skeptic would disagree with this. Skepticism has always attacked our understanding of reality, not reality itself. If anything it is the idealists, like Leibniz that argue that "reality is only in our minds", verging on solipsism. You seem to be misunderstanding Hume who more so points out that the only thing we can really "know" is our inner experience of reality, which is a bit closer to what you're arguing.
  - mjburgess 3y ago
    Hume is an idealist. And the idea that there's an "inner experience" which is the object of our knowledge is the premise of idealism. The objects of our knowledge are the world, directly. When I open my eyes and see a flower, I see a flower. I don't see my seeing of a flower; nor do I see my inner experience of a flower --- where indeed, is the eye which sees inner experiences? And which eye sees that one? This premise is the dogma of scepticism. Weighed against everything else it comes out vastly improbable. When I see a flower, the object of my seeing (and my knowing) is the flower. My knowledge consists in having the experience of the flower, as caused by the flower. Without much scientific knowledge I do not know, indeed, that I am having an experience of a flower. This talk of "having experiences" is a post-theoretical description of an event which is much more primitive. A dog which sees a flower knows there's a flower in front of it. It knows basically nothing about what kind of experience its having. The dog succeeds in being oriented to the world as it is; the dog succeeds in knowing. As do we. Neither of us are oriented towards ourselves. We are not peering inside our heads. Such muddles are the religion of scepticism.
    - IKantRead 3y ago
      > "I don't see my seeing of a flower" Then you must have a fundamentally different qualitative experience of consciousness than I do. The flower I am holding right now, it is real to me because I can observe myself experiencing it, however the flower you are holding I cannot experience because I am not observing your experience of observing the flower. It is quite remarkable that you can experience that flower that I am holding and say that it's real while I cannot do the same for the flower you are holding. > "A dog which sees a flower knows there's a flower" I certainly don't know enough about the state of my dogs mind to know that my dog is seeing a flower, as opposed to say, merely experiencing clustered sensations in the same location as I am seeing a flower. I've looked at a flower and seen my dog eat it, so I have a suspicion that he recognizes something there, but only because my beliefs about how his actions might correlate with seeing something. I also have friends who have seen a purple flower in the exact space I am looking where I cannot see a purple flower. What is the explanation for this?

mjburgess 3y ago

Hume's starting premise is that we can only talk about ideas in our heads. Hume was wrong; outrageously so. > that even causality cannot be meaningfully verified as real So much for how awfully limited Hume's philosophy is. If your premises are insufficient to evidence ordinary propositions; so much for your premises. The toy model here is the deficiency, not the world. > then you have to at least outline what you mean by "a flower" I do not. Philosophy answers to reality, not the converse. When I pick up a flower, there is a flower. Our ability to put that into words may, or may not, be limited. The power of our philosophical cognition here is irrelevant. That I am holding a flower invalidates all systems of philosophical propositions which assign that proposition 'False'. Scepticism does not falsify reality, rather, it is the converse. That there are systems of propositions which succeed in accounting for the truth of ordinary such claims makes scepticism doubly absurd. There is a world. It is the cause of my perceptions. My perceptions are caused by the world they present. I learn to perceive the structure of the world because the world has that structure. And so on.

IKantRead 3y ago
> Scepticism does not falsify reality I don't understand why you're even making this statement, no philosophical skeptic would disagree with this. Skepticism has always attacked our understanding of reality, not reality itself. If anything it is the idealists, like Leibniz that argue that "reality is only in our minds", verging on solipsism. You seem to be misunderstanding Hume who more so points out that the only thing we can really "know" is our inner experience of reality, which is a bit closer to what you're arguing.
- mjburgess 3y ago
  Hume is an idealist. And the idea that there's an "inner experience" which is the object of our knowledge is the premise of idealism. The objects of our knowledge are the world, directly. When I open my eyes and see a flower, I see a flower. I don't see my seeing of a flower; nor do I see my inner experience of a flower --- where indeed, is the eye which sees inner experiences? And which eye sees that one? This premise is the dogma of scepticism. Weighed against everything else it comes out vastly improbable. When I see a flower, the object of my seeing (and my knowing) is the flower. My knowledge consists in having the experience of the flower, as caused by the flower. Without much scientific knowledge I do not know, indeed, that I am having an experience of a flower. This talk of "having experiences" is a post-theoretical description of an event which is much more primitive. A dog which sees a flower knows there's a flower in front of it. It knows basically nothing about what kind of experience its having. The dog succeeds in being oriented to the world as it is; the dog succeeds in knowing. As do we. Neither of us are oriented towards ourselves. We are not peering inside our heads. Such muddles are the religion of scepticism.
  - IKantRead 3y ago
    > "I don't see my seeing of a flower" Then you must have a fundamentally different qualitative experience of consciousness than I do. The flower I am holding right now, it is real to me because I can observe myself experiencing it, however the flower you are holding I cannot experience because I am not observing your experience of observing the flower. It is quite remarkable that you can experience that flower that I am holding and say that it's real while I cannot do the same for the flower you are holding. > "A dog which sees a flower knows there's a flower" I certainly don't know enough about the state of my dogs mind to know that my dog is seeing a flower, as opposed to say, merely experiencing clustered sensations in the same location as I am seeing a flower. I've looked at a flower and seen my dog eat it, so I have a suspicion that he recognizes something there, but only because my beliefs about how his actions might correlate with seeing something. I also have friends who have seen a purple flower in the exact space I am looking where I cannot see a purple flower. What is the explanation for this?