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The_Death_Of_Achilles
New Member
16 Posts |
 Posted - 03/08/2008 : 14:44:53
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I'm a hardcore dyed in the wool naeive realist.
There is a world out there, prior to any theories or concepts of it, and it's fairly similar to the one we see when we take a look. It's a world which we can and do gain a lot of information about by sense data and consideration. When we report things about this world which are actually the case, we have said true things. When we mentally affirm things about this world which are actually the case, we believe true things. I wish I could say that sharing these opinions was a pre-requisite of sanity, but some very very intelligent people have disagreed.
Sure there may well be some crazy stuff going on at the very micro level, but so what? Just because the table isnt made out of mini-tables it doesn't follow that there's no table. Reductionism and any of that crazy materialist nonsense can go hang. Likewise so too can any ingenius arguments to the effect that there's nothing beyond ideas or whatever. Bollocks to that. Dr Samuel Johnson was right when he refuted idealism by kicking a stone.
I'm starting to view all philosophy as the battle against the bewitchment of our common sense by our reason.
Any disagreements? (I warn you, I may throw a rock at you to prove my point)
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Edited by - The_Death_Of_Achilles on 03/08/2008 15:09:17
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 16:06:02 [Permalink]
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Aye, the moon is still there even when no one's looking at it.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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The_Death_Of_Achilles
New Member
16 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 16:12:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Aye, the moon is still there even when no one's looking at it.
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Somebody on the Pit actually replied with ""Common sense" is another word for prejudice, and an excuse for people who refuse to think for themselves. " - Ugh. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 17:14:07 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by The_Death_Of_Achilles
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Aye, the moon is still there even when no one's looking at it.
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Somebody on the Pit actually replied with ""Common sense" is another word for prejudice, and an excuse for people who refuse to think for themselves. " - Ugh.
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Well, not to toot our own horns, but I'll think you find the "maddeningly stupid idiot" quotient to be much lower here at the SFN, (though still not zero).
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 17:33:12 [Permalink]
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I'm a pragmatic realist, not a naive realist.
Perhaps the difference is nothing more than giving lots of considered thought to the philosophical underpinning of realism and saying, "well, were I to try to live consistently by any non-realistic philosophy I would probably be considered insane." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 22:35:13 [Permalink]
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TDOA.....
Achilles, I don't really understand what you mean by a "naive" realist. Naive in what way? | There is a world out there, prior to any theories or concepts of it, and it's fairly similar to the one we see when we take a look. |
It sounds to me that it is identical to the one you see when you take a look! That constitutes realism, and nothing naive about it!| Just because the table isnt made out of mini-tables it doesn't follow that there's no table. |
Sure, there's a table by the standards you have chosen to define a table. The "table" may be a collection of molecules, or atoms, or electrons and protons and neutrons; or quarks, neutrinos, muons, etc., by the standards a particle physicist chooses to define it; a table may be a perceptive concept (how's that for a creative combination of antagonistic abstractions?) by an epistemologist, it may be seen as an example of furniture by a decorator or even a carpenter, a work of art by a collector or artisan and so forth and so on.....so what? | I'm starting to view all philosophy as the battle against the bewitchment of our common sense by our reason |
Philosophy is useful and constructive for exercising the mind muscle, but as a self-defined realist, you naturally would have little use for much of the intellection that falls under it's banner!
I cannot argue with your precept that one must behave (guide your actions) as a realist if one is to survive, much less successfully cope with a "realistic" (as percieved) world. To me, that is not to demean much of the wisdom and, indeed, truth - that is revealed by a perusal of (the broad context of) "Philosophy"
Is a rock moving through the air toward something if there is no one present to perceive it?
Of course not! However.....
a. If a blind man is present, it is the same as "no one"
b. If the rocks hits the ground and makes a noise, but the blind man is also deaf, it is still the same as "no one"
c. If the rock hits the blind and deaf man in the head, reality is suddenly created, someone is about in the Quad, and it certainly is not God, it's a guy with a bump on his head!
abject apologies to Bishop Berkeley, Zeus rest your soul!
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| Edited by - bngbuck on 03/09/2008 02:48:00 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 22:54:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
That constitutes realism, and nothing naive about it! |
"Naive" as in "unsophisticated."
Hitting someone with a thrown stone and challenging them to deny its reality isn't exactly a deep philosophical examination of what it means to be "real." The argument assumes that if the stone and/or the person were not real, they would behave in some different way than if they were real, but without being able to support that assumption nor even being able to begin to define what that different way might look like to any real observer. Hallucinated people and objects, for example, can and do appear to obey the laws of physics, and often behave just as the hallucinator expects.
"Naive realism" basically says, "if it look and acts real, then it is real, period." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 03:02:38 [Permalink]
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Jeeeze, Dave, you have got to have too much time on your hands!
I had no idea I said all that!
I was really just trying to tell TDOA to yell "duck" when he pitched that rock! Guess I didn't hit a Homer, huh?
Anyway, that was just the opening curtain of Troilus and Cressida! You weren't supposed to show up until the second act! Right after Achilles shoots himself in the foot! |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 15:46:35 [Permalink]
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TDOA said: | Reductionism and any of that crazy materialist nonsense can go hang. |
I'm not convinced the case for reductionism is all that dead.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 18:51:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by The_Death_Of_Achilles
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Aye, the moon is still there even when no one's looking at it.
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Somebody on the Pit actually replied with ""Common sense" is another word for prejudice, and an excuse for people who refuse to think for themselves. " - Ugh.
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Which it can be when the statement is made in the context of a fallacious appeal to credulousness. As an example, when a Creationist states that "common sense" is the reason for their irreducable complexity being correct and genetics being all wrong. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Baz
New Member
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2008 : 18:57:45 [Permalink]
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I suppose "common sense" is common, in that we all have "one", however we define it. It's a combination of education and experience (of all types),and if in any one application, either or both of these doesn't synch with reality, it's a pretty useless "sense".
...but that's just common sense!  |
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Naeive Realism
