A Malebranche Quote for Consideration

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm not sure what was unclear about it, if I'm understanding you.

When conducting an inquiry, the starting point has to be that the thing is what it appears to be, until evidence to the contrary has been found.

The appearance of a thing IS evidence as to what it is. Until we have other evidence, the appearance of the thing is the ONLY evidence we have. If you start from the assumption that the thing is not what it appears to be, what you are doing is assuming that the only evidence you have is false, without any evidence that indicates this.

If you are not bound by the evidence of appearance, and can freely assume that appearance is not valid, without evidence suggesting this, you can literally assume anything with basically equal validity.

Let's say I wanted to study apples. Apples appear to be a fruit that grows on trees. So that is the starting point. If I want to conclude that apples are NOT a fruit that grows on trees, I have to have evidence which suggests that. I can't just say it because I think appearances are inaccurate.

It is not logically valid, nor reasonable to begin by saying "appearances are not accurate to the thing in itself, therefore an apple is NOT a fruit that grows on trees, it must be something else."

All knowledge and all reason and thought rests upon self-evident first principles, which are themselves not proven by argument but held to be self-evidently true.

The law of non-contradiction is an example. You can't prove the law of non-contradiction, but if you deny it, rationality breaks down completely and reality itself becomes nothing but absurdity.

Similarly, the initial evidence which we call the 'appearance' of a thing must be the starting point for inquiry into that thing. To do otherwise is to begin by discounting the only evidence or even assuming the opposite of the evidence. This is not reasonable, it is absurd.

And your authorial source for this particular epistemic avenue is ... ?

 

[Simon_Templar]

.........


If that's the point, then it wasn't said out of prejudice, either. How about addressing what I have said? You and @zippy2006 are happy to obfuscate, claiming I'm speaking out of prejudice, which is ad hom and also not true, but neither of you have addressed the point I'm making. I'm not going to hold my breath that either of you will do so, either. It's much easier, I guess, to claim I'm being prejudiced then to address the point.

In my very first response to you, I addressed literally the only "point" you have made when I asked why you think that things are not as they appear, and I pointed out that in order to make that claim, you have to have evidence that supports it. To claim simply as a matter of course that things are not as they appear is not logically valid or reasonable.

Virtually everything you have said about Classical Realism has been inaccurate at best.

For example, lets look at your last thing

In an Aristotilian framework, we perceive the world directly; there is no gap as there is for early moderns. For Aristotle, forms are things in the world, percepts, and concepts. None of that is mind dependent. Abstractions clear away instead of add. For early moderns, we do not percieve anyhing in itself. What we perceive are ideas that are mental constructs of sense data. This shift makes a huge difference in how we view metaphysics. At any rate, my statement stands. There is a distinct shift between naive (direct) realism and representational (indirect) realism.

Lets take it line by line again...

In an Aristotilian framework, we perceive the world directly

I admit that I over-generalized something similar to this earlier myself. However, this statement is not accurate. Aristotle actually argued that there were some things in reality which were directly perceived by the senses, and there were other things which were only indirectly perceived by the senses.

So as a general statement, this is false. More accurately we perceived SOME parts of the world directly and SOME parts of the world indirectly.

there is no gap as there is for early moderns.

Depends on what you mean by early moderns. From Kant on, this becomes the dominant view, before that people were still trying to prove direct perception.

Which was the point I was attempting to get at earlier in my posts. Direct perception of reality can't be proved, which is one of the major reasons that modern philosophy failed and crashed and burned spectacularly. However, it can't be disproved either.

One of the ideas that becomes entrenched in modernism, as one of the first principles of modernism, is the idea that something must be proved in order to be believed. This is a bad first principle. Not only is it NOT self-evidently true, it is actually self-contradictory.

Modern philosophy failed because they accepted the idea that everything must be proved, and then found out they couldn't prove the most important ideas necessary to human interaction with reality.

If you don't have as a first principle that sense perception is basically reliable (not perfect, not infallible, but basically reliable) ALL human thought endeavor falls apart. Science becomes impossible, metaphysics becomes impossible, epistemology becomes impossible. Everything is eventually lost, which is why that inevitably ends up in Post-modernism.

For Aristotle, forms are things in the world, percepts, and concepts. None of that is mind dependent

As far as I understand it, this is just manifestly false.

Aristotle does appear to believe that the Forms are only instantiated in the world, and thus only encountered here in physical objects. This is generally viewed as the major, or one of the major differences between Aristotle and Plato (personally I tend to lean towards Plato on this one to some degree).

However, the idea that they are just precepts and concepts is not correct as is the statement that "none of that is mind dependent".

Virtually all of this is mind dependent.
In the Classical view Forms are not perceived simply by the senses. Animals have a sensitive soul and have most of the same senses that human do, but in the classical view animals do not perceive the forms.

Only the intellect perceives the Forms. In the classical view you "see" the world both with your eyes, and with your mind. The intellect could be described as a light that your mind shines on things to "see" them.

Abstractions clear away instead of add

To be honest, I'm not really sure what you mean by this. On the one hand, the intellect perceiving the Forms within physical objects could be called abstraction I suppose. Though really what this is, is the intellect seeing the 'thisness' of the thing. So it really isn't an abstraction, it is almost the opposite.

On the other hand, abstraction in the modern sense is more often what should be called reduction, and is a process of making things less real.

For early moderns, we do not perceive anything in itself. What we perceive are ideas that are mental constructs of sense data.

ok, do you have any reason why I should believe this is correct instead of a huge mistake? I'm aware of what you are talking about, and I was commenting on it myself earlier. I think it was a huge step backward that needs to be abandoned.

This shift makes a huge difference in how we view metaphysics. At any rate, my statement stands. There is a distinct shift between naive (direct) realism and representational (indirect) realism.

This shift does indeed make a huge difference in how we view metaphysics. It basically killed metaphysics so effectively that philosophers essentially don't do metaphysics anymore.

If your only statement were "this big shift happened" then sure. We would all agree with that. In fact, I said it myself before you did.

But that was not your statement. Your statement was actually "This shift happened, and we can't go back to the old outdated views, and that's a good thing."

The part that says "this shift happened" is correct. Everything else is false.

 

[Simon_Templar]

And your authorial source for this particular epistemic avenue is ... ?

Thank you for this certified internet moment. I needed a good laugh today. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this forum has devolved to reddit status.

You literally just asked me for a source, for a self-evident principle...

This is like the joke of going on reddit and claiming "the sky is blue" and having a bunch of people respond "SOURCE!!>!?!"

I find it particularly funny because a friend of mine was telling me about this not long ago, but it's the first time it has happened to me.

ahh.. good laugh.

Anyway, I most recently got the idea from Jimmy Akin. I was watching a podcast of his recently and he was talking about this principle as a key point in any investigative process.

However, it basically boils down to "If you make a claim contrary to appearance, you need evidence for that claim." Which in turn boils down to...
We have a reason to think A (because that is how it appears) If you wish to propose that it is not A, you need to have some reason why.

Otherwise I might as well just claim that none of your ideas are valid because there is really an alien parasite in your brain that is controlling you, or anything else I feel like.

There are only two kinds of premises. those that are self-evident, and those that require external evidence. If your claim is not self-evident, then it requires evidence.

At the end of the day, where I got the idea matters little. Most especially, the source of the idea is not a valid reason to dismiss the idea.

In any case, this has become too pointless and absurd to be worthwhile anymore. Consequently I'm out.

*edit add*

I did decide, before going to declare that @2PhiloVoid is clearly a Russian bot sent here as part of a dastardly Putin plot to disrupt the Christian Forums. And if you think I need evidence for this claim to be credible, please provide me with your authorial source for the radical notion that I need evidence...

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Thank you for this certified internet moment. I needed a good laugh today. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this forum has devolved to reddit status.

You literally just asked me for a source, for a self-evident principle...

This is like the joke of going on reddit and claiming "the sky is blue" and having a bunch of people respond "SOURCE!!>!?!"

I find it particularly funny because a friend of mine was telling me about this not long ago, but it's the first time it has happened to me.

ahh.. good laugh.

Anyway, I most recently got the idea from Jimmy Akin. I was watching a podcast of his recently and he was talking about this principle as a key point in any investigative process.

However, it basically boils down to "If you make a claim contrary to appearance, you need evidence for that claim." Which in turn boils down to...
We have a reason to think A (because that is how it appears) If you wish to propose that it is not A, you need to have some reason why.

Otherwise I might as well just claim that none of your ideas are valid because there is really an alien parasite in your brain that is controlling you, or anything else I feel like.

There are only two kinds of premises. those that are self-evident, and those that require external evidence. If your claim is not self-evident, then it requires evidence.

At the end of the day, where I got the idea matters little. Most especially, the source of the idea is not a valid reason to dismiss the idea.

In any case, this has become too pointless and absurd to be worthwhile anymore. Consequently I'm out.

You've judged my meaning and intention too quickly. But, since you've taken yourself OUT of the conversation, then consider yourself "outted."

 

[zippy2006]

And critiques of realism are nothing new, going all the way back to the Greek and Indian philosophers. So the charge of "chronological snobbery" doesn't apply.

Well, that proves my point. Realism and critiques of realism are age-old. If Aristotle is responding to critiques of realism, then obviously he isn't a naive realist. Or do you think he just ignored the critiques?

 

[zippy2006]

Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of direct realism/naive realism.

You're equivocating, as you always do. Naive realism is not direct realism.

Whether Aquinas was a direct realist can be, and has been, debated. But none of these things you are saying are serious. Claiming that Medieval theories of cognition are inferior to those of the modern period is only supportable on the basis of historical ignorance, and you are full of historical ignorance. What everyone who has studied the modern theories agrees on is that they are woefully inadequate. You take up this premise in the very OP of this thread, for heaven's sake.

It's okay, though. I know you haven't read Aquinas. You've demonstrated that multiple times. You like to talk. You talk about Aquinas, and Malebranche, and Descartes, and Wittgenstein, and Quine. Have you read any of them? Probably not. Have you understood any of them? Certainly not. Your ability to misunderstand texts is unparalleled. You've read some secondary source or survey. Perhaps you've glossed a Wikipedia article. Then you talk, like Aldous Huxley at his dinner parties, who pontificated on a topic he had first encountered in an encyclopedia article earlier that day.

More generally, theories of perception, no matter when they are espoused, can be critiqued, unless we're just not going to do philosophy.

Chronological snobbery isn't a critique, nor is it philosophy. Your sneering is not argument, but at this stage of the game it's obvious that sneering is all you have to offer. Lord willing, you will engage in philosophy at some point in your life. Only then will you know the distinctive taste of ideology, which had previously been ubiquitous.

 

[zippy2006]

And your authorial source for this particular epistemic avenue is ... ?

Philo, you asked a question and he offered a serious response. If you weren't interested in dialogue or engaging the response then why ask the question in the first place? Your approach here verges on Reformed Presuppositionalism, in which the catch-all "checkmate" is locked and loaded even before the first move is made.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You're equivocating, as you always do. Naive realism is not direct realism.

It may be reasonable to go easier on this point of differentiation since there are still a number of sources out there that still, easily enough, equate Naive Realism with being (a.k.a.) "Direct Realism."

Whether Aquinas was a direct realist can be, and has been, debated. But none of these things you are saying are serious. Claiming that Medieval theories of cognition are inferior to those of the modern period is only supportable on the basis of historical ignorance, and you are full of historical ignorance. What everyone who has studied the modern theories agrees on is that they are woefully inadequate. You take up this premise in the very OP of this thread, for heaven's sake.

It's okay, though. I know you haven't read Aquinas. You've demonstrated that multiple times. You like to talk. You talk about Aquinas, and Malebranche, and Descartes, and Wittgenstein, and Quine. Have you read any of them? Probably not. Have you understood any of them? Certainly not. Your ability to misunderstand texts is unparalleled. You've read some secondary source or survey. Perhaps you've glossed a Wikipedia article. Then you talk, like Aldous Huxley at his dinner parties, who pontificated on a topic he had first encountered in an encyclopedia article earlier that day.


Chronological snobbery isn't a critique, nor is it philosophy. Your sneering is not argument, but at this stage of the game it's obvious that sneering is all you have to offer. Lord willing, you will engage in philosophy at some point in your life. Only then will you know the distinctive taste of ideology, which had previously been ubiquitous.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Philo, you asked a question and he offered a serious response. If you weren't interested in dialogue or engaging the response then why ask the question in the first place? Your approach here verges on Reformed Presuppositionalism, in which the catch-all "checkmate" is locked and loaded even before the first move is made.

To my mind, I was asking a legitimate question. Please, give me the benefit of the doubt.

And of course some aspects of MY philosophical outlook will "seem" to verge or border on Reformed Presuppositionalism. But by now, you all should know the differences between my view and those of Reformed proponents.

There is no "check-mate" implied by me; although I might aver that not everything conceptualized as "self-evident" is indeed self-evident as claimed.

 

[zippy2006]

It may be reasonable to go easier on this point of differentiation since there are still a number of sources out there that still easily enough equate Naive Realism as being (a.k.a.) "Direct Realism."

Well, the "naive" in "naive realism" is either 1) a pejorative epithet, or 2) a synonym for "pre-critical." The realism of pre-moderns is obviously not pre-critical, for as @FireDragon76 noted, critiques of realism are age-old. PH was clearly using it in sense (1), as in, "We can't go back to naive realism..."

PH was engaged in name-calling, which, again, is not an argument. Just as no one calls themselves naive, so no one calls themselves a naive realist. To call someone or something naive is a disparaging comment, not an argument, and certainly not philosophy. Now we can spend all day trying to walk back PH's silly comments and claims, like we did at the beginning of this thread, or we can just move on and engage with more serious interlocutors. I suggest the latter.

 

[zippy2006]

To my mind, I was asking a legitimate question. Please, give me the benefit of the doubt.

And of course some aspects of MY philosophical outlook with "seem" to verge or border on Reformed Presuppositionalism. But by now, you all should know the differences between my view and those of Reformed proponents.

There is not "check-mate" implied by me; although I might aver that not everything that is conceptualized as "self-evident" is indeed self-evident as claimed.

Okay, I will believe you, but it is understandable if your comment came across as dismissive.

In Nagel's Last Word he attends to what I will call "second-order relativizing." As an example, suppose a religious person gives an argument for God's existence. In response the atheist says, "Ah, he's just working up his craving for the opiate of the masses." Instead of engaging with the claims and arguments, the atheist tries to undercut them so he doesn't have to. This case would be a form of psychologizing.

Dialogue presupposes engagement with ideas, on their own terms. One can call an entire paradigm into question, but that should not be the first move. As a rule of thumb, if a response does not provide a third-person viewer with any information about the thing that was being responded to, then the response was probably not engaging with the content of what it was responding to.

As it seems to me, the irony of "hermeneutics" is that it has a Cartesian flavor, insofar as it implies that one must achieve an optimal hermeneutical stance before one can move forward and come to knowledge. I would want to say that less preparation is required, especially when talking with those who come from different traditions.

 

[public hermit]

In my very first response to you, I addressed literally the only "point" you have made when I asked why you think that things are not as they appear, and I pointed out that in order to make that claim, you have to have evidence that supports it. To claim simply as a matter of course that things are not as they appear is not logically valid or reasonable.

That wasn't the point. You focused on a passing remark and avoided the point. The point was the shifts in early modernity (epistemic priority instead of metaphysical priority; indirect realism in place of direct realism) put metaphysics into question. I don't think we can recover from that shift. You, obviously, disagree. You might disagree, but I doubt any argument that says shifts in those areas did not occur. Aristotle thought a person was no better than a cucumber if they questioned existence. Descartes starts by questioning existence.

What would it take to recover? It would take us somehow forgetting that our metaphysical position will always entail assumptions/commitments that are far from indubitable. The obsession with certainty in early modernity was an attempt to try and save what the scholastics could not by their approach. It failed. We now live in a world where we have to make assumptions and we know it. You know it.

Lets take it line by line again...

What makes it direct realism is that the forms guarantee unmediated knowledge of reality. The forms are not mind dependent and yet they connect the mind with the world. The forms are in the world (hylomorphic compound), the forms are perceived and abstracted, thus guaranteeing direct contact with the world and knowledge of it. That changes significantly.

ok, do you have any reason why I should believe this is correct instead of a huge mistake? I'm aware of what you are talking about, and I was commenting on it myself earlier. I think it was a huge step backward that needs to be abandoned.

Was it correct? I don't think something like it was avoidable. The speculative metaphysics of the scholastics were bound to be questioned if only due to the speculative nature of the enterprise. As "natural philosophy" came into its own and Aristotle's physics were shown in error, the speculative nature of metaphysics was going to take a back seat. But indirect realism has stood the test of time. Science supports the position that we don't directly perceive the world. Likewise, Quantum physics supports the idea that how we do perceive the world is not how it acts at a certain level (which is what I was getting at in my earlier post regarding how we know things at a certain level are not as we perceive them).

What is the take away from this shift that began with early modernity? I think the intellectually honest position is to admit that metaphysics depend on commitments, ontological or otherwise, that either can't be proven or can't be disproved. Is reality fundamentally matter, energy, mind, or some combination thereof? These are all live metaphysical positions, and no matter which one you choose, you are making a commitment that is not given.

I sense from the replies this is an uncomfortable place for some. I get it, and if holding on to one position instead of another makes things better, good. Personally, I think it's a matter of faith, and I don't think it can be avoided by any of us nor will it change.

But that was not your statement. Your statement was actually "This shift happened, and we can't go back to the old outdated views, and that's a good thing."

The part that says "this shift happened" is correct. Everything else is false.

Then we disagree, which I already gathered from your resposnes. Thanks.

 

[public hermit]

You're equivocating, as you always do. Naive realism is not direct realism.

They are often treated as synonymous, and I'm not outside the pale for doing so, as well. The rest of what you have said is mostly ad hom and disrespectful. I can't imagine why you would think I'm up for even trying to have a discussion.

Chronological snobbery isn't a critique, nor is it philosophy.

Your sneering is not argument, but at this stage of the game it's obvious that sneering is all you have to offer

You couldn't be less generous toward me. This is not a philosophical discussion but a mean spirit bashing of my character. Thanks.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Well, the "naive" in "naive realism" is either 1) a pejorative epithet, or 2) a synonym for "pre-critical." The realism of pre-moderns is obviously not pre-critical, for as @FireDragon76 noted, critiques of realism are age-old. PH was clearly using it in sense (1), as in, "We can't go back to naive realism..."

To some extent, I would agree with PH, which is why I keep harping on the fact that in my own philosophical outlook I focus on epistemological developments both Modern and Contemporary from Descartes to Quine, and then the Philosophical Hermeneuticists/Critical Realists. Not that I'd knock the useful things that someone like St. Aquinas has said in the past, but one can't really stop with him and think it's all said and done. Humanity has been moving on ...

There's also a reason I don't officially sign on the dotted line with any one particular denomination of the Christian Faith. Each has their strengths; each has their weaknesses, and I prefer to only assume soteriological responsibility for the lowest common denominator of the Christian Faith as essential or historically coherent.

PH was engaged in name-calling, which, again, is not an argument. Just as no one calls themselves naive, so no one calls themselves a naive realist. To call someone or something naive is a disparaging comment, not an argument, and certainly not philosophy. Now we can spend all day trying to walk back PH's silly comments and claims, like we did at the beginning of this thread, or we can just move on and engage with more serious interlocutors. I suggest the latter.

Maybe he is, but it's not self-evident to me that he is name-calling. I know he's a Universalist and that gets under the collar of Exclusivists, but I don't share either of those two positions. Moreover, should I feel guilty if I say that I think anyone who's still stuck on Aristotle and Ptolemy is in need of further educational expansion for their epistemological horizons?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Okay, I will believe you, but it is understandable if your comment came across as dismissive.

In Nagel's Last Word he attends to what I will call "second-order relativizing." As an example, suppose a religious person gives an argument for God's existence. In response the atheist says, "Ah, he's just working up his craving for the opiate of the masses." Instead of engaging with the claims and arguments, the atheist tries to undercut them so he doesn't have to. This case would be a form of psychologizing.

Well, I definitely WASN'T psychologizing. You should give me more credit than that.

Dialogue presupposes engagement with ideas, on their own terms. One can call an entire paradigm into question, but that should not be the first move. As a rule of thumb, if a response does not provide a third-person viewer with any information about the thing that was being responded to, then the response was probably not engaging with the content of what it was responding to.

Dialogue also presupposes that there won't be any problems of perlocution in the process of dialogue between interlocutors. But, being that the problems of mutual understanding don't fit neatly and tidily into any one theory of communication, we don't always understand what it is we think we're being told or being asked.

As it seems to me, the irony of "hermeneutics" is that it has a Cartesian flavor, insofar as it implies that one must achieve an optimal hermeneutical stance before one can move forward and come to knowledge. I would want to say that less preparation is required, especially when talking with those who come from different traditions.

I'm pretty sure that Philosophical Hermeneuticists don't rely on Descartes; in fact, there is some small flavor of existentialism within a confluence of other epistemic nuances ........

 

[zippy2006]

Maybe he is, but it's not self-evident to me that he is name-calling. I know he's a Universalist and that gets under the collar of Exclusivists, but I don't share either of those two positions. Moreover, should I feel guilty if I say that I think anyone who's still stuck on Aristotle and Ptolemy is in need of further educational expansion for their epistemological horizons?

If you start out a conversation by telling someone they're naive, then you're being a dick. Should you feel guilty for being a dick? Yes. Is being a dick doing philosophy? No. Should you be surprised when the person you are trying to insult comes back at you? No.

Apparently the difference between you and PH is that you think we are naive and PH starts out his conversations that way. I would characterize this as a large difference.

 

[zippy2006]

I can't imagine why you would think I'm up for even trying to have a discussion.

I am well aware that you're not. You misunderstood that, too.

They are often treated as synonymous

Those who oppose direct forms of realism often treat them synonymously, for obvious reasons. In no way does this help your case.

 

[zippy2006]

Aristotle thought a person was no better than a cucumber if they questioned existence.

Where does Aristotle say this? You continue to make stuff up out of thin air, and it's always false. There's a word for people who constantly say false things. Besides, Aristotle literally talks about such things in passing, such as in Meta IV.6.

Why do you pontificate on Aristotle? Have you honestly read more than a few pages of Aristotle? Maybe a chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics? If you don't know what you are talking about, then why pretend you do? It's always this talk of the "naivete" of Aristotelians from people who have never read Aristotle. And the contemporary Aristotelians have read the same modern philosophy that others have, but they have also read Aristotle, and for this reason they are actually justified in making comparative judgments.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

If you start out a conversation by telling someone they're naive, then you're being an ass. Should you feel guilty for being an ass? Yes. Is being an ass doing philosophy? No. Should you be surprised when the person you are trying to insult comes back at you? No.

Apparently the difference between you and PH is that you think we are naive and PH starts out his conversations that way. I would characterize this as a large difference.

No, I don't assume you're naive. I just resent dogmatism extending from Direct Realism wherever it's found, especially where perception in epistemology is concerned.

Remember, I used to bash atheists here on CF for this very thing quite a bit several years ago, back when I used to get a lot of flack from them and they'd say that Epistemology and Philosophical Hermeneutics weren't relevant.

 

[zippy2006]

No, I don't assume you're naive. I just resent dogmatism extending from Direct Realism wherever it's found, especially where perception in epistemology is concerned.

Well, the underlying problem here is the dogmatism of the person who starts out conversations with sly accusations of naivete, and this is reflective of the dogmatism represented by modern forms of thought (which have hounded Christianity from the beginning). This is in large part what postmodernism is reacting against.

I'm just tired of bad-faith interlocutors who start out a conversation in such a way, and then immediately go on to play the victim. This thread is the first time I have engaged Templar in any real way. I disagreed with him, we had a discussion, and it came to a resolution. Neither of us fell into ad hominem or system-bashing, and we certainly didn't begin on such a note. What passes for rational thought these days is often little more than ego jockeying. It's smug and dumb.