What is naive about naive realism?

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kennethamy
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 01:01 pm
@Zetherin,
Zetherin;134662 wrote:
But optical illusions demonstrate that our perception of reality can be flawed; they say nothing about what is. And you even note, in your example, that what really is the case is that A and B are the same color. If it were all in my head, why would you bother distinguishing what really is, from what I perceived?


Yes, all these arguments for the conclusion that we never can see things as they are, need to be examined, and not just taken for granted. Berkeley is very good on the weaknesses of representative realism. Of course, the theory he puts in its place is absurd.
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 01:08 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134654 wrote:
Even if the light is bad, and we cannot detect the color of that apple, why isn't the apple red anyway?


The surface of the apple hasn't changed but the color of the apple isn't a property of the surface of the apple. It's a property of your experience of seeing the apple. That depends on context, such as light. If the light changes, the color of the apple changes. In green light, the apple appears black instead of red. The apple has changed color.

If your response is to say "well it only appears black but it's really still red" then you mean something bizarre by color because I mean "the color something appears".
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 01:20 pm
@Night Ripper,
Night Ripper;134667 wrote:
The surface of the apple hasn't changed but the color of the apple isn't a property of the surface of the apple. It's a property of your experience of seeing the apple. That depends on context, such as light. If the light changes, the color of the apple changes. In green light, the apple appears black instead of red. The apple has changed color.

If your response is to say "well it only appears black but it's really still red" then you mean something bizarre by color because I mean "the color something appears".


Why, if by something having a color, you mean "the color it appears to have", is it bizarre to mean the color it has? You think it is bizarre to disagree with you?

Anyway, we don't think that the color something appears to have always is the color it is. For example, sometimes, when I buy some article of clothing, I ask to take it to see it in daylight because the color it appears to have under the fluorescent lights of the store distort the articles real color. The real color of the apple which I see in the supermarket certainly isn't the color it had when I take it home under my dingy lights. And, if Jane dyes her mousy hair blond, do you think that the color her hair appears is the real color of her hair? You must be naive.

"Philosophy is an assemblage of reminders" Wittgenstein.
 
Gracee
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:01 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134405 wrote:
The term, "naive realism" is used often on this forum, usually in a disparaging way. And, I suppose that although "innocent realism" would be all right (if there were such a thing) no one wants to be naive. Realism is, of course, the view that there are external objects independent of us. But what is naive realism, and why is it naive? What would sophisticated realism be?


naive realism is the view most people take having not thought about it. This claim is refuted when the problem of illusions comes up. However, sophisticated direct reaslim says that we see illusions because of unusual conditions in the external world. For example, a stick which appears to be bent when half in and half out of water. We don't perceive it to be bent because what we are seeing is different to reality, we perceive it to be bent, because the water causes the light to bend, giving us an image of a bent stick - the light bending happens in the external world because of the unusual conditions of refracting light.

Personally, i would call myself a sophisticated direct realist, and this view is actually supported by the science of perception. Both Representative realism and Idealism are not only logically flawed, but also present some undesirable concequences.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:29 pm
@kennethamy,
Naive realism is metaphysical sloth. A philosopher is a half-philosopher until he can account for his method, which is logos.....

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 03:33 PM ----------

Gracee;134721 wrote:


Personally, i would call myself a sophisticated direct realist, and this view is actually supported by the science of perception. Both Representative realism and Idealism are not only logically flawed, but also present some undesirable concequences.


Hi there! Hegel and Kant are geniuses on this. The real is partially revealed by discourse, or logos. This is a neglected factor. Time exists only for humans as our many concepts of future(what we want/plan on/fear/expect) and past(memory). Epistemology must abstract the transcendental from the incidental, else all is pragmatism & Holism is the only rational choice. Man imposes structure on the world. He divides it into objects. He imposes his number(s) on the world. The real is rational, for man imposes his rationality transcendentally..

If you are unfamiliar w/ the transcendental (not the transcendent, but something quite different) then you should check it out. Nothing in philosophy is more exciting.....
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:34 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;134751 wrote:
Naive realism is metaphysical sloth. A philosopher is a half-philosopher until he can account for his method, which is logos.....


Hmmm. My method for seeing things is looking at them. (No Nous is good news).
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:35 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134756 wrote:
Hmmm. My method for seeing things is looking at them. (No Nous is good news).


Yes, and the nous within you is what makes them things, and not chaos....

You've got to go transcendental Ken, or it's all just pragmatism....
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:36 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134677 wrote:
For example, sometimes, when I buy some article of clothing, I ask to take it to see it in daylight because the color it appears to have under the fluorescent lights of the store distort the articles real color. The real color of the apple which I see in the supermarket certainly isn't the color it had when I take it home under my dingy lights.


So, the "real" colors are the ones in the daylight and the supermarket store and the "fake" colors are the ones in fluorescent light and under your dingy house lights?

That sounds delightfully absurd.

kennethamy;134677 wrote:
You must be naive.


Well, I'm not the one that subscribes to "naive realism".
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:40 pm
@Night Ripper,
Night Ripper;134759 wrote:
So, the "real" colors are the ones in the daylight and the supermarket store and the "fake" colors are the ones in fluorescent light and under your dingy house lights?

Good point, Night ripper. The real is rational, at least for man. Qualia in themselves are not.. It's a crucial issue...
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:45 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;134757 wrote:
Yes, and the nous within you is what makes them things, and not chaos....

You've got to go transcendental Ken, or it's all just pragmatism....


Shouldn't it be, "what makes those things", not "them things"?

Continental or transcendental?

"The sleep of reason brings forth monsters" Goya
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:47 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134775 wrote:
Shouldn't it be, "what makes those things", not "them things"?

No, my wording was write.(:sarcastic:) Things are only unities because of pure negativity, or nous. Our mind chops up the qualia whether we will or no. We can only think digitally. This is the clue that leads us to the realization.....

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 03:48 PM ----------

kennethamy;134775 wrote:

"The sleep of reason brings forth monsters" Goya

Very true! Except it's you who are asleep to Reason.. I just woke up.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 02:50 pm
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;134779 wrote:
No, my wording was write.(:sarcastic:) Things are only unities because of pure negativity, or nous. Our mind chops up the qualia whether we will or no. We can only think digitally. This is the clue that leads us to the realization.....

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 03:48 PM ----------


Very true! Except it's you who are asleep to Reason.. I just woke up.


Do yourself a favor. Go back to bed. You clearly need a lot more sleep. You are in a frenzy.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 03:45 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134785 wrote:
Do yourself a favor. Go back to bed. You clearly need a lot more sleep. You are in a frenzy.


Why because I'm a faster thinker and typist than you? I suggest that you wake up.
 
Emil
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 04:25 pm
@kennethamy,
R. seems to think that it is a good idea to derail virtually all threads on this board with his nonsensical crap. It is depressive that he has not been banned as of yet. Apparently, the admins of this board think that he is really doing philosophy.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 04:29 pm
@Emil,
Emil;134863 wrote:
R. seems to think that it is a good idea to derail virtually all threads on this board with his nonsensical crap. It is depressive that he has not been banned as of yet. Apparently, the admins of this board think that he is really doing philosophy.


You are a pseudo-logician to say so. And I hope you will realize it. Open your mind. Think!

You have the attitude of an accuser of Socrates.

//Edited to be more polite!//
 
Twirlip
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 04:37 pm
@Emil,
Surely a person should not be banned from a forum merely for being hard to understand?
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Tue 2 Mar, 2010 04:46 pm
@Twirlip,
Twirlip;134867 wrote:
Surely a person should not be banned from a forum merely for being hard to understand?


Twirlip, I love you.
 
Pythagorean
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 06:39 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;134677 wrote:

Anyway, we don't think that the color something appears to have always is the color it is. For example, sometimes, when I buy some article of clothing, I ask to take it to see it in daylight because the color it appears to have under the fluorescent lights of the store distort the articles real color. The real color of the apple which I see in the supermarket certainly isn't the color it had when I take it home under my dingy lights. And, if Jane dyes her mousy hair blond, do you think that the color her hair appears is the real color of her hair? You must be naive.



The point Locke was making by distinguishing primary from secondary qualities was: where is the division in the mind between thought and perception?

The type of objects that the scientists deal with must be distinguished from the experiences of the naive, unscientific man who will ultimately fuse his subjective ideas of reality with what emerges from a purely scientific descritption.

In the pre-scientific outlook the subjective qualities that objects have the power to produce have always led to an unscientific, and hence, unrealistic account of reality. Naive realism is presicely the pre-scientific account of objects.


If we say that an orange tastes sweet we do not believe that 'sweetness' exists in the orange. If we say that fire burns us, we do not believe that 'pain' exists in the fire.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 07:56 am
@Twirlip,
Twirlip;134867 wrote:
Surely a person should not be banned from a forum merely for being hard to understand?


You are right. But what about writing what it is impossible (not hard) to understand? But, I would agree that even this is not contrary to the rules. There are, in general (not only on this Forum) almost no standards for intelligibility. Nonsense has been written under the guise of philosophy thoughout all of its history. It would violate the ex post facto rule of Anglo-Saxon law to start banning nonsense now.

An excellent article on this is by Stove:

Stove, What Is Wrong With Our Thoughts

---------- Post added 03-03-2010 at 09:03 AM ----------

Pythagorean;135319 wrote:
The point Locke was making by distinguishing primary from secondary qualities was: where is the division in the mind between thought and perception?

The type of objects that the scientists deal with must be distinguished from the experiences of the naive, unscientific man who will ultimately fuse his subjective ideas of reality with what emerges from a purely scientific descritption.

In the pre-scientific outlook the subjective qualities that objects have the power to produce have always led to an unscientific, and hence, unrealistic account of reality. Naive realism is presicely the pre-scientific account of objects.


If we say that an orange tastes sweet we do not believe that 'sweetness' exists in the orange. If we say that fire burns us, we do not believe that 'pain' exists in the fire.


It may be that science does not have the philosophical implications that you think it has. That is often (if not invariably) the case.

When we say that the orange is sweet, what do we believe?
 
Night Ripper
 
Reply Wed 3 Mar, 2010 11:15 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;135333 wrote:
When we say that the orange is sweet, what do we believe?


The orange produces an experience of sweetness in those with similar tastes to ourselves. Of course, some people may not have the same tastes so it might taste terrible to them.
 
 

 
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