Against solipsism/"Cartesian intuition"

[mbillie1]

I've been reading/studying Husserl and Levinas. Levinas claims Husserl is a solipsist (which he is not, but nevertheless) and this reminded me of a passage of Nietzsche arguing against solipsism. Solipsism is one of the more poorly grounded philosophical positions out there in my opinion. I was just wondering what people thought about
a) Levinas' criticisms of Husserl for being solipsistic
b) Solipsism in general
c) Nietzsche's criticism of solipsism. This is from Beyond Good And Evil, Part 1 "On The Prejudices of Philosophers", section 15 2nd paragraph, and section 16 2nd paragraph.


" What? And others even say that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be--the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a complete reductio ad absurdum, assuming that the concept of a causa sui is something fundemantally absurd."

" Let the people suppose that knowledge means knowing things entirely; the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, "I think," I find a whole series of daring assertions that would be difficult, perhaps impossible to prove; for example, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an "ego," and, finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking--that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps "willing" or "feeling"? In short, the assertion "I think" assumes that I compare my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further "knowledge," it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me."

Clearly both Husserl and Levinas were familiar with Nietzsche. Why would Levinas argue that Husserl is a solipsist? From Husserl's "Cartesian Meditations", 1st Meditation, around text marker 57:

"More than anything else the being of the world is obvious. It is so very obvious that no one would think of asserting it expressly in a proposition. After all, we have our continuous experience in which this world incessantly stands before our eyes, as existing without question."

And

"Just as the reduced Ego is not a piece of the world, so, conversely, neither the world nor any worldly Object is a piece of my Ego, to be found in my conscious life as a really inherent part of it, as a complex of data of sensation or a complex of acts."

Thoughts?

[DonkBluffer]

I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about any of these people or philosophies, but


" What? And others even say that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be--the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a complete reductio ad absurdum, assuming that the concept of a causa sui is something fundemantally absurd."

If you don't believe that the external world is the 'work' of your organs (I assume he just means the eyes, ears, etc.), then what is the alternative explanation?

[mbillie1]

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If you don't believe that the external world is the 'work' of your organs (I assume he just means the eyes, ears, etc.), then what is the alternative explanation?

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In the passage in question, he's arguing against the thesis that all that there is to the external world is what is created by your sense organs. Think of the Matrix - he's arguing against someone who is claiming that the world is like your own personal Matrix. Solipsism means the view that you are the only thing that exists and the world is illusory. That's what Levinas accused Husserl of advocating, and that's what Nietzsche argues against in those passages I cited.

Edit: the alternative explanation is that the external world really exists. Obviously your sensory organs are the way you experience the world, but some people (solipsists, Descartes to some extent, etc) believe that because our experience of the world is mediated by our sense organs, that we cannot know that the external world actually exists.

[DonkBluffer]

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If you don't believe that the external world is the 'work' of your organs (I assume he just means the eyes, ears, etc.), then what is the alternative explanation?

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In the passage in question, he's arguing against the thesis that all that there is to the external world is what is created by your sense organs. Think of the Matrix - he's arguing against someone who is claiming that the world is like your own personal Matrix. Solipsism means the view that you are the only thing that exists and the world is illusory. That's what Levinas accused Husserl of advocating, and that's what Nietzsche argues against in those passages I cited.

Edit: the alternative explanation is that the external world really exists. Obviously your sensory organs are the way you experience the world, but some people (solipsists, Descartes to some extent, etc) believe that because our experience of the world is mediated by our sense organs, that we cannot know that the external world actually exists.

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Thanks for explaining! I think I agree with neither. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[mbillie1]

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Thanks for explaining! I think I agree with neither. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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But you can't disagree with both /images/graemlins/smile.gif I mean, the external world really exists or it doesn't really exist, right?

[DonkBluffer]

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Thanks for explaining! I think I agree with neither. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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But you can't disagree with both /images/graemlins/smile.gif I mean, the external world really exists or it doesn't really exist, right?

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I like non-dualism. I think both of these views assume that a separate self exists. A self that exists separately from the world. The first one implies the existence of a soul or something like that, that is real, while the world is illusory. The latter implies that the world exists by itself, outside of consciousness.

I'm going to bed now. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[mbillie1]

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I like non-dualism. I think both of these views assume that a separate self exists. A self that exists separately from the world. The first one implies the existence of a soul or something like that, that is real, while the world is illusory. The latter implies that the world exists by itself, outside of consciousness.

I'm going to bed now. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

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I'm certainly no dualist either, but I don't think that a finite and non-metaphysical distinction of 'self' (as phenomenal experience) and world represents a dualistic view.

In other words, if the existence of the world is dependent on it being experienced consciously in a metaphysical sense, that is in some sense solipsistic (or very strange, if it depends on the experience of any consciousness and not just ones own). However I certainly agree that the soul/self atomism and any metaphysical dualism is an absurd and untenable position. But don't let any of the other posters read that /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[NotReady]

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However I certainly agree that the soul/self atomism and any metaphysical dualism is an absurd and untenable position.


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What's your definition of dualism and why do you think it's absurd?

[mbillie1]

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However I certainly agree that the soul/self atomism and any metaphysical dualism is an absurd and untenable position.


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What's your definition of dualism and why do you think it's absurd?

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Dualism would be any position that posits that a non-physical part of your self (soul, mind, spirit, etc) acts on the physical part of yourself (body). It's absurd because it violates the first law of thermodynamics.

[AWoodside]

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Solipsism means the view that you are the only thing that exists and the world is illusory...
the alternative explanation is that the external world really exists.

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There is definately a third option. You might call it weak Solipsism, external world skepticism, or several other things. It basically amounts to a degree of agnosticism on the subject. It seems like you want to say the only options are believing there is not an external world (solipsism) and believing there is one. You might be of the opinion that we simply can never be 100% confident the external world exists, but can't be 100% confident it doesn't either.

I don't think that anyone who is intellectually honest with themselves and sufficiently rigorous can deny the validity of external world skepticism, but I also think it's a property of existence that has little impact. Whether we live in a type of matrix, or the world we see actually corresponds to some sort of absolute reality, the sensory perceptions we recieve from that world (articifical or otherwise) will remain the same (at least that seems to be the case so far). So, whatever stance you take on things like Solipsism or EWS, it seems like the human experience will remain largely unchanged.

[mbillie1]

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I don't think that anyone who is intellectually honest with themselves and sufficiently rigorous can deny the validity of external world skepticism, but I also think it's a property of existence that has little impact. Whether we live in a type of matrix, or the world we see actually corresponds to some sort of absolute reality, the sensory perceptions we recieve from that world (articifical or otherwise) will remain the same (at least that seems to be the case so far). So, whatever stance you take on things like Solipsism or EWS, it seems like the human experience will remain largely unchanged.

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Agreed... EWS/solipsism fails a few of the "is this philosophy BS?" tests, including the very significant "Does it change the way I behave in any discernable way?" question. Anytime someone tells me he or she is skeptical of the existence of the external world I always ask to have their stuff. "Well no, I need that!" "Oh, ok so the external world must be real enough then, huh?"

[NotReady]

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Dualism would be any position that posits that a non-physical part of your self (soul, mind, spirit, etc) acts on the physical part of yourself (body). It's absurd because it violates the first law of thermodynamics.


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Isn't it definitional that a law of physics doesn't apply to the non-physical?

[mbillie1]

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Isn't it definitional that a law of physics doesn't apply to the non-physical?

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Follow me here:

If your non-physical part of yourself acts on/causes your physical part of yourself, some energy has been exerted on the physical part of yourself. This energy cannot come from nowhere, that violates the first law of thermodynamics. It has nothing to do with the non-physical part of you. It simply can't affect the physical part of you in any way, or be affected by it, since this violates a known physical law. However you want to reconcile that with your personal beliefs is not my business, but that does render most metaphysical dualisms absurd.

[NotReady]

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Follow me here:

This energy cannot come from nowhere, that violates the first law of thermodynamics. It has nothing to do with the non-physical part of you. It simply can't affect the physical part of you in any way, or be affected by it, since this violates a known physical law.


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Try to understand me on this:

You simply cannot prove that the non-physical can't affect the physical. Mankind can hardly claim to know everything. Until he does I suggest he stop trying to say what absolutely can and cannot be.

However you want to live with the fact you're not God is not my business.

[mbillie1]

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You simply cannot prove that the non-physical can't affect the physical. Mankind can hardly claim to know everything. Until he does I suggest he stop trying to say what absolutely can and cannot be.

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Nice argumentative consistency there. This is totally unrelated to the thread and I am not going to argue with you about this if you're throwing out laws of physics as evidence for a position. Agree to disagree. Anything on Levinas, Husserl and solipsism? Because I'm still fairly curious about that.

[Philo]

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Dualism would be any position that posits that a non-physical part of your self (soul, mind, spirit, etc) acts on the physical part of yourself (body). It's absurd because it violates the first law of thermodynamics.

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You don't have to think that something non-physical has a causal effect on something physical in order to be a substance dualist. To be a substance dualist only requires that you think there exist two basic sorts of thing (in Descartes' case the two basic sorts of things are bodies, or physical things, which are essentially extended, and minds (or 'souls' if you like), which are non-physical and essentially thinking things).

[Philo]

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Solipsism is one of the more poorly grounded philosophical positions out there in my opinion.

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But who takes anyone seriously who takes solipsism seriously?

[mbillie1]

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You don't have to think that something non-physical has a causal effect on something physical in order to be a substance dualist. To be a substance dualist only requires that you think there exist two basic sorts of thing (in Descartes' case the two basic sorts of things are bodies, or physical things, which are essentially extended, and minds (or 'souls' if you like), which are non-physical and essentially thinking things).

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Right, but for this to be philosophically significant the two have to interact in some sort of meaningful way. Descartes did eventually conclude that his thinking self acted on his body, I believe he said that the pineal gland (possibly wrong, but some specific area in the brain) was the location at which they connected.

[NotReady]

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Nice argumentative consistency there


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Saying you can't prove but that you assert isn't inconsistent.

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This is totally unrelated to the thread


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Then why call dualism absurd?

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if you're throwing out laws of physics as evidence for a position.


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I throw it out as evidence concerning the non-physical. I expect most scientists do likwise.

[mbillie1]

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if you're throwing out laws of physics as evidence for a position.


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I throw it out as evidence concerning the non-physical. I expect most scientists do likwise.

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Again, you are missing (deliberately or not) the point. Whatever the role of any non-physical object is, from the standpoint of the known laws of the physical world, energy cannot simply be generated out of nowhere--it cannot simply come from the non-physical. There is a set amount of stuff in the universe, it can be converted to matter from energy or vice versa, but new stuff cannot be introduced. If your philosophical system posits that new energy is introduced from the non-physical, it contradicts a known physical law. I am not making a claim about properties of the non-physical (which would be ridiculous for other reasons) but about explaining the behavior of physical objects in the world, namely us.

[mbillie1]

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But who takes anyone seriously who takes solipsism seriously?

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Clearly no-one... solipsism, like relativism, is one of those things that nobody really admits to, but everybody accuses everybody else of believing.

[NotReady]

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Whatever the role of any non-physical object is, from the standpoint of the known laws of the physical world, energy cannot simply be generated out of nowhere--it cannot simply come from the non-physical.


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You're conflating two ideas here - the known laws of physics and the universal laws of reality. We know, at least in part, something about physics. We simply can't reasonably claim to know ultimate truth about all reality, so we can't legitimately say energy can't come from the non-physical. To do so would obviously prelude the possibility of God as Creator. When you say dualism is absurd you're saying the idea of a Creator God is absurd. It may appear absurd to you but you can't make a logical case for absurdity and you certainly can't do so empirically.

[mbillie1]

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You're conflating two ideas here - the known laws of physics and the universal laws of reality.

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And what might the universal laws of reality be, pray tell?

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We know, at least in part, something about physics. We simply can't reasonably claim to know ultimate truth about all reality, so we can't legitimately say energy can't come from the non-physical. To do so would obviously prelude the possibility of God as Creator. When you say dualism is absurd you're saying the idea of a Creator God is absurd. It may appear absurd to you but you can't make a logical case for absurdity and you certainly can't do so empirically.

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I'm making an empirical argument based on well-established laws of the empirical world, what are you talking about?

[NotReady]

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And what might the universal laws of reality be, pray tell?


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I'm including the supernatural or non-physical. I don't know what they are.

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I'm making an empirical argument based on well-established laws of the empirical world, what are you talking about?


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Other than the fact there's no such thing as a purely empirical argument I'm talking about the supernatural, non-physical world.

I'm curious. I covered a lot of this ground not long ago in a thread about the Argument from Reason as stated by Lewis and Reppert. Have you seen that thread? Though you haven't stated you're a materialist it seems obvious you are.

[mbillie1]

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I'm curious. I covered a lot of this ground not long ago in a thread about the Argument from Reason as stated by Lewis and Reppert. Have you seen that thread? Though you haven't stated you're a materialist it seems obvious you are.

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I haven't seen that thread. I suppose whether or not I'm a materialist depends on how you define materialism. I am materialistic in the sense that I reject metaphysical dualisms / non-physical existants, but I'm not quite an empiricist and I do accept certain epistemological dualisms (consciousness as experience cannot be reductively explained, due to the fact that ones experience of the explanation would always occur through, well, experience) although I am skeptical of and tend to reject the abtruse metaphysical claims that Chalmers, etc tend to draw from them.

If you believe in god, we are obviously not going to agree about this (or anything) but this board really does not need any more "god exists, atheists are dumb / god doesn't exist, atheists are smart" threads, which is why I attempted to start a discussion about something else. Link to the thread in question if you don't mind, and I'll read/respond to the relevent arguments you make here, if you do want to continue this discussion. I don't think we're going to get anywhere though, as I am more or less phenomenologically inclined and certainly not willing to accept the primacy of reason or language over the existence/laws of the experienced world.

[NotReady]

Link to the thread in question if you don't mind, and I'll read/respond to the relevent arguments you make here, if you do want to continue this discussion.

Here it is. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=scimathphil&Number=904278 9&Searchpage=1&Main=9040978&Words=reppert&topic=&S earch=true#Post9042789)

The Carrier critique is worthwhile and Reppert has a web site where he responds to Carrier.

[mbillie1]

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The Carrier critique is worthwhile and Reppert has a web site where he responds to Carrier.

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Interesting. I don't see why matter can't think about other matter though--I read the argument, it just doesn't seem to follow. Maybe I need to read the entire book, not sure. Most cognition (not consciousness, but cognitive thought) can actually be mapped out in terms of brain patterns. This does not explain the experience of consciousness though. David Chalmers posits a metaphysical distinction between conscious "stuff" and physical "stuff" in his book "The Conscious Mind" but he really cannot effectively argue for anything other than an epistemological dualism. Either way, he doesn't argue for consciousness as immortal or anything corresponding to a religious understanding of soul/self atomism.

At any rate, now we're getting somewhere!

As far as the Kant comments go, it is worth pointing out that while Kant argues for the faculty of reason which lead to synthetic judgments a priori, his argument is also seriously flawed. I'm not sure if this is explicitly what you were referring to, since Kant's books tend to run together in my head since his writing style is, for lack of a better word, awful.

A good rejoinder to Kant's argument for the rational faculty (which seems at least related to what we're talking about) can be found in Nietzsche's "Beyond Good & Evil", "On The Prejudices of Philosophers", section 11. It's pretty long, so I'll selectively quote. I'm sure the text is available online, if you don't already own it.

" One had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old Kant. 'By virtue of a faculty'--he had said, or at least meant. But is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? 'By virtue of a faculty,' namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor on Moliere,

Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,
Cujus est natura sensus assoupire

(trans: "Because it contains a sleepy faculty whose nature it is to put the senses to sleep")

But such replies belong in comedy, and it is high time to replace the Kantian question 'How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?" by another question, 'Why is belief in such judgments necessary?' "
...
"Or to speak more clearly and coarsely: synthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all; we have no right to them; in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as a foreground belief and visual evidence belonging to the perspective optics of life."

Etc... as I went on quoting I realize that deviates somewhat from the issue at hand. The entirety of "On the Prejudices of Philosophers" provides a very good critique of most western philosophy up to the mid 1880s, and while Nietzsche certainly does not get everything right he does provide some interesting insights into the idea of self and soul atomisms, vaguely related to dualism, and some excellent commentary on Kant specifically.

With respect to the degree of my "materialism" (in quotes for fear of being associated with dogmatic Materialism), the best explanation of my position is in a book from a professor I studied with (who has since died, very sadly for me). I'll try to use the link function, although my UBB-fu is not up to par. The book is excellent and I will try to quote a couple of philosophical arguments against dualism from it here in the next few hours.

Here's the book (http://www.amazon.com/Merleau-Pontys-Ontology-2E-Second-SPEP/dp/081011528X/sr=8-1/qid=1171582938/ref=sr_1_1/104-3775673-9269502?ie=UTF8&s=books), it is an excellent discussion of this subject in particular as well as a number of other expanditures on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology.

From the text:

"We may talk of being as though it were independent of human cognition, but as soon as we invest being with positive significance (for example, being there, being thus), the content of our speech is already conditioned by the factors governing cognition.
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Put another way, speculative thought about a domain lying utterly beyond the sphere of possible cognition is at most analogical: it describes the humanly unknowable by means of figures and symbols drawn from the sphere of human experience.
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-but both Locke and Hume follow Descartes in presupposing that proof of some sort is required before a correspondence between the utterly disparate realms of thought and things can be asserted. Once, however, assent is given to such a bifurcation, the quest for certainty with its demand for complete transparancy in the data of cognition leads to a suspension of the thesis of external existence--as is attested by the philosophical progression from Locke to Hume.
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They all run up against the same dilemma: either all combination of simple impression is goverened by laws, be they logical or natural, in which case the possibility of error and illusion is entirely ruled out; or chance can intervene in the process of combination, in which case the possibility of distinguishing between error and truth is also ruled out. Both alternatives lead to skepticism."

...etc.

The arguments presented here against dualism come from a different perspective. Essentially, if dualism is true, then we have some sort of Kantian epistemology set up--we experience a metaphysically mediated version of the world, not the actual world (since we are experiencing it through our metaphysically distinct dualistic self). If our experience is necessarily true, how can we account for mistaken perceptions? If our experience is sometimes true and sometimes false, how can we attribute truth of any kind to the world? If all of our experience of the world is mediated by our "soul" or "self" or whatever word you want to use to describe the non-physical part of yourself in the dualism, we have no grounds to attribute truth or falsity to the world. If you claim a perception is false: what are you comparing it to? I'm not doing a great job summarizing this argument I know... but that's my attempt, I will try to flesh it out further if this develops.

[madnak]

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Husserl or Levinas.

Solipsism gets a lot of undeserved criticism. Most of the refutations presented here are based on absurd premises that don't necessarily apply.

Obviously solipsism implies that sensory organs don't actually exist in the first place, so any view of solipsism based on physical organs is flawed. Also, Descartes had an unsupportable position for many reasons. Neither of these facts serve as an indictment of solipsism in general. Nor does solipsism predict any different actions.

Our experience of life is based on our senses. We identify and organize the sensory input. We arrange it in patterns. We pay attention to how our actions affect these patterns. And then we take actions that tend to result in patterns that are most pleasing to us. Any physical object can be viewed as a pattern of related sensory data. The exact composition of that data is relevant to the desirability of the outcomes. Therefore, concern for physical objects matters from a solipsistic standpoint (in theory).

This perspective is entirely consistent with our experience - the only question is why the experience itself is so internally consistent. But if we're trying to identify the source of the sensory data, there's no reason other than intuition to believe it's more likely to come from an objective physical world than from the self.

I don't know whether solipsism is useful - in the first place, humans seem almost hard-wired to create the concept of an external world and organize his perceptions within that context, and in the second the utility of that concept as an efficient tool is undeniable for any sufficiently experienced person (such as myself, and obviously if the universe is solipsistic I'm the only one there is /images/graemlins/wink.gif).

But it's important to remember that even where disciplines like physics are concerned, the goal is to construct an effective conceptual representation of the patterns we observe, not to identify any absolute reality.

[John21]

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Dualism would be any position that posits that a non-physical part of your self (soul, mind, spirit, etc) acts on the physical part of yourself (body). It's absurd because it violates the first law of thermodynamics.

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I'm not sure that's true. I could be thinking of an apple, and yes for that to occur, some energy is being expended, however, I could instead think about a Snicker's bar without requiring additional energy. There's a base level of energy being expended to support thought, but what those particular thoughts are, wouldn't seem to require an additional input of energy.

So if we have this base flow of thought, which we can control the direction of without the input of additional energy, from one thought to another, can that effect the physical? I think it can. If I simply choose to think about Snicker's bars instead of apples, I'm probably going to be eating more candy bars than apples and that will have a physical effect on my body.

I believe we have a certain amount of control over what we think, but not necessarily that we think, and it's this area of free-will, choice, or direction of attention which seems completely intangible, and doesn't require any additional energy to go in one direction rather than another. And those intangible choices have an observable effect on physical reality.

[mbillie1]

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I'm not sure that's true. I could be thinking of an apple, and yes for that to occur, some energy is being expended, however, I could instead think about a Snicker's bar without requiring additional energy. There's a base level of energy being expended to support thought, but what those particular thoughts are, wouldn't seem to require an additional input of energy.

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Energy is expended over time... so if you switch to thinking about snickers you may not be expending more energy, but you're still expending the same amount of energy over a now longer period of time.

[John21]

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I'm not sure that's true. I could be thinking of an apple, and yes for that to occur, some energy is being expended, however, I could instead think about a Snicker's bar without requiring additional energy. There's a base level of energy being expended to support thought, but what those particular thoughts are, wouldn't seem to require an additional input of energy.

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Energy is expended over time... so if you switch to thinking about snickers you may not be expending more energy, but you're still expending the same amount of energy over a now longer period of time.

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You seem to be suggesting that we turn thought on and off, rather than change the content or direction of what we're thinking. I don't know about that and it's not really what I was implying.

Not to sound too goofy, but what I was suggesting is there's a continual flow of "thought-energy" which doesn't change. In other words, while I'm thinking, I'll be thinking about something. So over a duration of ten minutes, my thought energy will be a fixed amount, regardless of what object I hold in thought or what direction it goes in. I could think about apples for the entire ten minutes or alternate back and forth with oranges, but that choice wouldn't seem to require a physical input of energy. As long as I'm thinking about something.

It's like going in to vote. Once you're there and committed to the process, it doesn't require an additional input of energy to check one box or another - it's a choice. Yet the outcome has an effect.

[Philo]

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You don't have to think that something non-physical has a causal effect on something physical in order to be a substance dualist. To be a substance dualist only requires that you think there exist two basic sorts of thing (in Descartes' case the two basic sorts of things are bodies, or physical things, which are essentially extended, and minds (or 'souls' if you like), which are non-physical and essentially thinking things).

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Right, but for this to be philosophically significant the two have to interact in some sort of meaningful way. Descartes did eventually conclude that his thinking self acted on his body, I believe he said that the pineal gland (possibly wrong, but some specific area in the brain) was the location at which they connected.

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Well, the mind-body problem is philosophically significant, presumably, since it continues to occupy professional philosophers. Replace substance dualism with property dualism, where we acknowledge the seeming incommensurability of physical properties vs. mental properties, and you have the contemporary setting for the mind-body problem.

[NotReady]

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This does not explain the experience of consciousness though.


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The argument from reason isn't about consciousness. It's about the validity of our reasoning on a materialistic basis.

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As far as the Kant comments go,


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I wish I hadn't mentioned Kant in my post. I mostly did so because Reppert refers to him. I think Kant had a specific argument against naturalism similar to the argument from reason. I don't think Reppert is referring to Kant's Critique. I haven't read Kant's version of AFR, so not sure.

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Essentially, if dualism is true, then we have some sort of Kantian epistemology set up--we experience a metaphysically mediated version of the world, not the actual world (since we are experiencing it through our metaphysically distinct dualistic self).


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I'm not at all familiar with Merleau-Ponty but am interested in a fuller presentation of his argument against dualism, especially how monism avoids the problems he sees with it. I would be very interested if he addressed the AFR itself.

[Philo]

I'm not sure why you discuss Descartes' cogito together with solipsism--do you think Descartes was a solipsist?

[mbillie1]

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You seem to be suggesting that we turn thought on and off, rather than change the content or direction of what we're thinking. I don't know about that and it's not really what I was implying.

Not to sound too goofy, but what I was suggesting is there's a continual flow of "thought-energy" which doesn't change. In other words, while I'm thinking, I'll be thinking about something. So over a duration of ten minutes, my thought energy will be a fixed amount, regardless of what object I hold in thought or what direction it goes in. I could think about apples for the entire ten minutes or alternate back and forth with oranges, but that choice wouldn't seem to require a physical input of energy. As long as I'm thinking about something.

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Well this is not a philosophical assertion... it's an empirical one. Whether or not that's true can be determined by measuring brain waves, etc...

[mbillie1]

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I'm not sure why you discuss Descartes' cogito together with solipsism--do you think Descartes was a solipsist?

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No, but most solipsists begin from the cogito and refuse to go any further. Descartes' arguments in some form can be found in most solipsistic views. Also, Husserl called his lectures "Cartesian Meditations" and Levinas accused him of solipsism, so it seems relevent. And finally, Nietzsche responds to the "I think" assertion in one of the quotes in my original post.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You seem to be suggesting that we turn thought on and off, rather than change the content or direction of what we're thinking. I don't know about that and it's not really what I was implying.

Not to sound too goofy, but what I was suggesting is there's a continual flow of "thought-energy" which doesn't change. In other words, while I'm thinking, I'll be thinking about something. So over a duration of ten minutes, my thought energy will be a fixed amount, regardless of what object I hold in thought or what direction it goes in. I could think about apples for the entire ten minutes or alternate back and forth with oranges, but that choice wouldn't seem to require a physical input of energy. As long as I'm thinking about something.

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Well this is not a philosophical assertion... it's an empirical one. Whether or not that's true can be determined by measuring brain waves, etc...

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Huh? I'm not making a philosophical assertion. I was responding to the ridiculous claim you made that dualism is absurd because it violates conservation of energy. It simply isn't true. And there's version's of relative dualism, where the first law doesn't even come up.

[Dane S]

I see solipsism kind of like nihilism not as a philosophy per say, but as this horrifying trap door that seems to be embedded in all our reasoning despite any of our best efforts. I don't think many thinkers WANT solipsism to be true, but it's a very seductive idea in that its plausibility simply cannot be assaulted. There is no logical basis on which you can convince a solipsist he is wrong. Arguments concerning utility and respectability are prejudicially biased and won't be relevant to someone stuck inside solipsism.

I think that maybe the only thing that can cure a nagging tendency to solipsism is the transcendence of the subjective self through connections with other people during experiences of love or other equally profound experiences which convince us in a direct manner that others DO have inner worlds of their own. It's then possible to extrapolate outwards from the loved one or whoever and grant that if she/he has an inner world/soul, that other humans have them too. But this can't be proven logically. I think it's likely that everyone slides a bit towards solipsism in their perspectives when they're alone. However, most have collected enough belief in the true existence of others through experience that they never come close to totally submitting.

I think aesthetic experience also has the potential to convince us that there is something external to ourselves. That feeling of being stretched beyond one's limits of perception implies that there are indeed limits to what we can contain within us, and if they can be stretched, that seems to prove that something BEYOND those limits must exist . But, again, it still seems to boil down to faith in the end.

THE SUICIDE
Jorge Luis Borges

Not a single star will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die and, with me, the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,
the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.