Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:53 pm If you are idealist I'd like to know as there are so few of us.

Are you kidding. The world is crawling with idealists. They may not all identify themselves as idealists, or even know what the word means, but everyone who swallows some mystic view of reality (religion or ideology) and everyone who believes there is any kind of knowledge that does not require learning or evidence (intuition, instinct, conscience, or any other kind of so-called knowledge one just has) is an idealist.

fashionable lightbulbs are hard to find...

-Imp

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 4:00 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:53 pm If you are idealist I'd like to know as there are so few of us.

Are you kidding. The world is crawling with idealists. They may not all identify themselves as idealists, or even know what the word means, but everyone who swallows some mystic view of reality (religion or ideology) and everyone who believes there is any kind of knowledge that does not require learning or evidence (intuition, instinct, conscience, or any other kind of so-called knowledge one just has) is an idealist.

You would say so wouldn't you?

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 7:56 pm fashionable lightbulbs are hard to find...

-Imp

The problem with the fashionable ones is they are all so dim.

Excepting its most extreme forms, the ideal most often serves as the indispensable precursor of what may eventually become real. In any event, idealism per se, has no affiliation with religion and almost none with mysticism. In essence, reality as created or perceived by us wouldn't come into being if it weren't first imagined, not by countering its incipient ideal as opposite or visualizing it in the negative, but in its creative realization or extension determined unconditionally by what is possible.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 9:14 pm

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Mar 02, 2022 7:56 pm fashionable lightbulbs are hard to find...

-Imp

The problem with the fashionable ones is they are all so dim.

Now we know sheeple are dim we can choose to enlighten ourselves. It's important though to recognise an honest source of enlightenment.

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:01 am Excepting its most extreme forms, the ideal most often serves as the indispensable precursor of what may eventually become real. In any event, idealism per se, has no affiliation with religion and almost none with mysticism. In essence, reality as created or perceived by us wouldn't come into being if it weren't first imagined, not by countering its incipient ideal as opposite or visualizing it in the negative, but in its creative realization or extension determined unconditionally by what is possible.

The reference to, "idealism," on this thread (Belinda and I) is philosophical idealism, which has a very different meaning from the common meaning you are referring to.

Philosophical idealism was originally identified as including all those philosophies that regarded reality is being primarily mental as opposed to empiricism which regarded reality as being primarily physical. It has since become somewhat more complex.

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Within modern philosophy there are sometimes taken to be two fundamental conceptions of idealism:

1. something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and

2. although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.

You are confusing the non-philosophical meaning of idealism with the philosophical meaning as the same reference explains:

The terms “idealism” and “idealist” are by no means used only within philosophy; they are used in many everyday contexts as well. Optimists who believe that, in the long run, good will prevail are often called “idealists”.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:52 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:01 am Excepting its most extreme forms, the ideal most often serves as the indispensable precursor of what may eventually become real. In any event, idealism per se, has no affiliation with religion and almost none with mysticism. In essence, reality as created or perceived by us wouldn't come into being if it weren't first imagined, not by countering its incipient ideal as opposite or visualizing it in the negative, but in its creative realization or extension determined unconditionally by what is possible.

The reference to, "idealism," on this thread (Belinda and I) is philosophical idealism, which has a very different meaning from the common meaning you are referring to.

Philosophical idealism was originally identified as including all those philosophies that regarded reality is being primarily mental as opposed to empiricism which regarded reality as being primarily physical. It has since become somewhat more complex.

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Within modern philosophy there are sometimes taken to be two fundamental conceptions of idealism:

1. something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and

2. although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.

You are confusing the non-philosophical meaning of idealism with the philosophical meaning as the same reference explains:

The terms “idealism” and “idealist” are by no means used only within philosophy; they are used in many everyday contexts as well. Optimists who believe that, in the long run, good will prevail are often called “idealists”.

I endorse.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:52 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:01 am Excepting its most extreme forms, the ideal most often serves as the indispensable precursor of what may eventually become real. In any event, idealism per se, has no affiliation with religion and almost none with mysticism. In essence, reality as created or perceived by us wouldn't come into being if it weren't first imagined, not by countering its incipient ideal as opposite or visualizing it in the negative, but in its creative realization or extension determined unconditionally by what is possible.

The reference to, "idealism," on this thread (Belinda and I) is philosophical idealism, which has a very different meaning from the common meaning you are referring to.

Philosophical idealism was originally identified as including all those philosophies that regarded reality is being primarily mental as opposed to empiricism which regarded reality as being primarily physical. It has since become somewhat more complex.

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Within modern philosophy there are sometimes taken to be two fundamental conceptions of idealism:

1. something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and

2. although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.

You are confusing the non-philosophical meaning of idealism with the philosophical meaning as the same reference explains:

The terms “idealism” and “idealist” are by no means used only within philosophy; they are used in many everyday contexts as well. Optimists who believe that, in the long run, good will prevail are often called “idealists”.

However you interpret it - and I agree there are various versions of what idealism denotes - in neither case does it have anything to do with overt mysticism except perhaps in its most mutilated form, and especially not with religion, both of which you included under the term. That's what I was objecting to.

To boot, the philosophical meaning as usual is bunk. Self-knowledge or knowing thyself, as so often mentioned without additional qualifiers, occurs almost exclusively in one direction only...from the outside-in NOT from the inside-out!

Four words: The Concept of Mind

It's not for nuthin that so many discussions about 'consciousness' and 'mind' scattered throughout the forum are going in circles. There are predications of substance everywhere, when 'consciousness' and 'mind' are just collections of dispositions and capacities of the body. One doesn't 'have' consciousness... one is conscious or not, and this determination is made by observing how one behaves. Ryle's gonna sort yas out, don't you worry.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 12:27 am

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:52 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 6:01 am Excepting its most extreme forms, the ideal most often serves as the indispensable precursor of what may eventually become real. In any event, idealism per se, has no affiliation with religion and almost none with mysticism. In essence, reality as created or perceived by us wouldn't come into being if it weren't first imagined, not by countering its incipient ideal as opposite or visualizing it in the negative, but in its creative realization or extension determined unconditionally by what is possible.

The reference to, "idealism," on this thread (Belinda and I) is philosophical idealism, which has a very different meaning from the common meaning you are referring to.

Philosophical idealism was originally identified as including all those philosophies that regarded reality is being primarily mental as opposed to empiricism which regarded reality as being primarily physical. It has since become somewhat more complex.

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Within modern philosophy there are sometimes taken to be two fundamental conceptions of idealism:

1. something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and

2. although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.

You are confusing the non-philosophical meaning of idealism with the philosophical meaning as the same reference explains:

The terms “idealism” and “idealist” are by no means used only within philosophy; they are used in many everyday contexts as well. Optimists who believe that, in the long run, good will prevail are often called “idealists”.

However you interpret it - and I agree there are various versions of what idealism denotes - in neither case does it have anything to do with overt mysticism except perhaps in its most mutilated form, and especially not with religion, both of which you included under the term. That's what I was objecting to.

To boot, the philosophical meaning as usual is bunk. Self-knowledge or knowing thyself, as so often mentioned without additional qualifiers, occurs almost exclusively in one direction only...from the outside-in NOT from the inside-out!

If you followed the conversation between Belinda and I

Belinda wrote:
"If you are idealist I'd like to know as there are so few of us."
to which I responded:
"Are you kidding. The world is crawling with idealists. They may not all identify themselves as idealists, or even know what the word means, but everyone who swallows some mystic view of reality (religion or ideology) and everyone who believes there is any kind of knowledge that does not require learning or evidence (intuition, instinct, conscience, or any other kind of so-called knowledge one just has) is an idealist."

In its broadest philosophical meaning, any view that suggest knowledge can exist in one's consciousness without learning or without evidence is a form of idealism or what I call, "magic knowledge," and includes all views that believe someone just knows something (by instinct, intuition, inspiration, spiritual revelatio, some biological or evolutionary pre-programming, genetics, or mystical insight, etc. etc. etc.)

You certainly don't have to use the word idealism that way, of course. I just thought you might be interested in how it is used by others, because you will no doubt run across it again.

By the way, I agree the philosophical idealism in all its forms and permutations is bunk.

But there are no "forms and permutations" of idealism. It's a simple not a complex idea. You just don't get it.

A conscious universe?

https://www.space.com/is-the-universe-conscious

Consciousness is just another word for nothing, and nothing is just another word for everything.

Nothing and Everything is one without a second.

No word can define one without a second, yet, every word defines one without a second.

Just THIS... UNKNOWN knowing.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 8:25 am Consciousness is just another word for nothing, and nothing is just another word for everything.

Nothing and Everything is one without a second.

No word can define one without a second, yet, every word defines one without a second.

Just THIS... UNKNOWN knowing.

You to cashier: Where's my change? You gave me nothing.

Cashier to you: I gave you everything. Nothing is just another word for everything.

Suddenly, dawn breaks on Marblehead.