RE: What We Can Know About the World

From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:29:14 -0700

Jesse writes

> Lee Corbin wrote:
> >
> >Chris writes
> >
> > > >>Samuel Johnson did refute Berkeley.
> > >
> > > The main thrust of Berkley's argument is to show
> > > that sensory perception is
> > > indirect, and therefore the existence of a
> > > material cause for those perceptions is an
> > > unjustified inference in contravention of
> > > Occam's razor. The argument that the look,
> > > texture, smell, taste and sound of an object
> > > are apprehended indirectly is successful in
> > > my opinion, and I don't feel any need
> > > to defend it unless someone really thinks
> > > a defence is required.
> >
> > Do *you* contend that the existence of material
> > causes for your perceptions is unjustified? Good grief.
>
> How do you define "material causes"?

I stay clean away from definitions, sorry. I gave
reasons earlier why definitions don't work.

I expect that you want to know what was meant when
Chris and I were writing.

I'll get to that.

> It seems to me you are conflating idealism with
> solipsism, or the idea that the outside universe
> doesn't have any existence outside of my perception
> of it, and that there are no objective truths about
> external reality outside of my subjective ideas about
> it.

Well, no, I understand the difference, and agree with
the characterization of it you gave. It sounds as though
you believe in the existence of things "out there"
independent of your perceptions of it. That is, if
you were given a drug that cut off your senses, then
you'd figure that the outside world was still there
even though you could no longer sense it. We agree
on that.

Customarily (whether people like you and me are sensing
that outside world or not), we believe that for the most
part here on Earth, at least, there are a lot of material
objects around. Tables, chairs, rocks, and cars for
instance.

We can then go further and say that in this model, even
peoples bodies are material objects, and obey the usual
high school laws of physics. (They have mass, often
reflect light, and so forth.)

So by

> > Do *you* contend that the existence of material
> > causes for your perceptions is unjustified?

I meant that your perceptions have physiological causes
because your brain is a part of an obviously successful
survival machine designed by evolution.

Lee
Received on Fri Jul 29 2005 - 23:29:00 PDT