/philosophy/ - Philosophy

I suppose I should elaborate a bit:

The idea is that the "best" way of establishing an informed opinion is by formulating (or adopting) the theory that fits the most data using the fewest number of assumptions. That being said, "hard solipsism" has an extra assumption, one that is not necessary. That being that that which we observe, external reality, is not all there is. It's simply added on to our existing understanding, but for no real reason, with no justification. It explains no more data. In fact, it might even be impossible to create a justified theory that adds up to something being outside of our reality.

On the other side, while "soft solipsists" hold that we can never be certain reality exists, I hold that the assumption is...well, it's the only way things could really be. To say that there could be something outside our reality is incoherent, and here's why:

The concepts of "being", of "existence", of "outside". everything applies within reality. To ask whether reality really exists or is simulated is to commit a fallacy: existence applies within reality. You cannot apply part of the whole to the whole itself. It was like asking what was "before time", or asking if there is something "outside space". It doesn't make any sense.

Furthermore, to me the whole solipsism thing is really a clear case of Russell's teapot. The possibility of all that we experience being a simulation is really as irrelevant as the possibility of the teapot floating in space. Our experience is properly basic, and that's the starting point. Anything believed above that must be justified, and, as previously stated, to be justified, the theory must explain the most data with the fewest assumptions. Solipsism doesn't do that, hard solipsism even more so. I think.

>The fear or error in modern philosophy which leads to epistemology is an error itself which causes subject/object dualism which necessarily generates skepticism. Once the object is separated from the subject by the epistemological gap nothing can get the object back for us. {The structure of epistemology is the structure of jealousy. How do I know she/he is being faithful? I don’t trust her/him. <-- Once this attitude/thought is accepted the relationship is done, there is no way to bring back trust. Epistemology is just a maddened jealousy.}

>Part of the reason why the modern philosophers could do epistemology without realizing the paradox is because they had an unjustified assumption that the mind was better known than the world; that you could have noninferential self-knowledge of your own mental states, and that therefore part of the new individualism was that you could be in possession of a kind of certainty about yourself even if you knew nothing about the world. Internal certainty with external skepticism.

>Imagine someone who is absolutely certain about their own inner states, but uncertain about the world. This is what we usually think of as a psychotic case. We have a whole structure of philosophy premised on this idea, that the inner is safe and knowable, but everything outside is mad. [Hume] realizes this structure of madness when he says “I am a monster to myself. I think myself mad” when he cannot find why there should be a connection between austere and rational skepticism and his monstrosity. He cannot diagnose why he has to put his best certainty about himself (skepticism) out of mind in order to enter the world and play billiards.

>Epistemology generates subject/object dualism and generates a whole series of further forms of deception in which we say we have knowledge but not real knowledge (we know appearances but not things in-themselves), or we have knowledge but there is something else that is true (we know appearances, but we relate to the absolute/noumenal by faith) [Kant and Jacobi]

What would make you think external world realism is a necessary assumption? That you have experiences requires no idea of a world out there, nor even of there being a subject at all.

>>3996

Wouldn't "non-inferential self-knowledge" stem, just like Solipsism, from the Cogito? That the idea that "I think therefore I am" is true, and the only(at least the beginning of) undoubtable knowledge, contrasted with scientific and demonstrated truth/knowledge?

Where is that quotation from, if I might humbly ask

As a side note, could subject/object dualism be the great Duality mirrored in philosophical history and embodied by Plato and Aristotles particular vs the Idea, the Abstract? And wouldnt the neccesity of this Duality shed light(and light is the only metaphor for this discussion) on the Truth of thought/philosophy itself? Or is it all falsehoods and nihilism

>>4021

Bernstein lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, quote is from the [5th lecture - Introduction chapter, part 2].

What Bernstein seems to mean by non-inferential knowledge of the mind is that the cogito completely ignores the conditions of the possibility of making that very statement, it thinks it is a kind of given brute fact, but it actually isn't. Yes, it's a true statement, but it is an incomplete truth about ourselves, it relies on concepts external to the immediate individual consciousness taken from historical community, and it is an incomplete argument with huge gaps. It is abstracted from our lives which begin not in reason, not in mind, but in activity and community. When that is brought into the conceptual argument there is no way solipsism could have any serious consideration given to it other than an error of madness.

Bernstein actually connects the universal-particular debate to whole-parts and one-many debates of ontology. The subject-object division is related to them, but fueled by a different question following from what Hegel calls natural consciousness which does not recognize the role of conceptual cognition in knowledge generation from experience. Once the conceptual dimension of knowledge is acknowledge it is seen that the subject-object duality is a mistaken presupposition underlying our understanding of what knowledge is.

>>4021

On another note, according to Bernstein, Berkeley's philosophy is hugely important to this question if you are interested. Bernstein says Berkeley is one of the "darkest" thinkers of modernity whose philosophy rightfully terrified all of those that reacted strongly to his immaterial (world)anti-realist idealism.

I have never had an interest in Berkeley, but dayum if that doesn't make me very interested. Bernstein recommends a book on a systematic reading of Berkeley, but I can't for the life of me hear the name of the author clearly and have not found anything that seems like it.

Those lectures are just full of interesting quips on other philosophers, such as Descartes' implicit atheism, and his highly disguised moral subjectivism.

Paging Sokal.

>>3994

>That being said, "hard solipsism" has an extra assumption

On the contrary, hard solipsism eliminates an unnecessary assumption. There's no need to infer a reality behind that which you observe directly - the contents of your consciousness.