Yes, some words are. But not all words. How about the word, "when", or the word, "but"? Or an abstract word like, "exist"? In fact, Berkeley was mistaken in thinking that the term, "exist" was tied to sensations. When I say that X's exist, how is that tied to any sensations? X may be, but how about "exist"?

Yes words, remove them and whatta ya got?
If I could see through your mind, your perspective, for a moment, I would most likely find different answers, although I suspect the questions would remain the same.
It seems that every pot I boil, I find at the bottom a leap of faith.
Is this true for you?

No. Even if words are not there, things are. Why would anyone think differently? (I don't have faith that there is a monitor in front of me, I know there is one).

At the risk of sounding like a carp, how is it that you know? Are not your senses ,5of them, creating an impression? Do you not have some faith that your sensations are real?

Of course I know on the basis of my senses and of by reason. That's how human beings know things. I am not supernatural. I don't understand what you mean by my sensations being real. What would a fake sensation be? If you mean, do I believe that my sensations can tell me about the world, of course I do. Why shouldn't I? But that is not faith. I have good reasons to believe that they do. Don't you?

Sure, on the one hand. Maybe it's the old arguement " I think therefore I am ". I am trying to imagine a place where I have no senses and I'm having difficulty seeing how I might exist in such a place.

Yes, I don't blame you. (What is the other hand? I don't think it has anything to do with "I think, therefore I am". Why do you?).

I am at a loss to explain that, at the moment. Its hurting my brain.
Do you feel that we are proving the original statment about the difficulty?

What is the original statement? There have been lots of statements.

About philosophy being difficult to explain to another mind

It depends on the philosophy. It depends on the explainer. And, it depends on the person who wants the explanation. I don't think there is a true general answer to that question. I think it takes some effort to understand academic philosophy, and sometimes people do not succeed in doing so. But, as Spinoza said, "All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. Otherwise, everyone would do them". Spinoza was a very wise man, as well as a great philosopher.

Do you think about what it would be like to have no sensation, having never had any sensation?

Probably you will find out when you die.

That wasn't the question

Oh? Why not? .............

Yes. Once again that strange question, "how does it exist?" suggesting that there are "ways of existing"

Your final sentence illustrates that. Where the Moon is, and how it it like (not how it appears, of course) has nothing to do with anyone's viewpoint. The Moon is where it is, and it is like what it is like (it has the properties it has).

Philosophy asks questions about the meaning of existence. Perhaps the most basic question in philosophy is: what is the meaning of existence? But you always assume that the meaning of existence is obvious and invariable, and proceed from that point, as if the whole matter is settled. Where's your sense of wonder?

As regards the robust defense of the common-sense view of life, if common sense is the ultimate reference point for experience, why ask philosophical questions at all? If the world simply is as everyone sees it, what is the point of philosophizing?



It is not possible to conceive of it, or consider anything, from 'no' viewpoint. For an object's existence to be at all meaningful, it has to be considered from a viewpoint. As to whether it exists or has properties external to all viewpoints, this, I believe, is what Kant declared forever unknowable, so you can take issue with that if you wish.

Whether and how the Universe, or even the simplest object in it - and there are no completely simple objects - exists, in the absence of perception of it, is an assumption, an inference, and an act of faith. Of course things don't go in and out of existence whenever they are not looked at. But their existence 'as they are in themselves' must always be conjectural or inferential.

I think the reason this is offensive to common sense, is that common sense views the visible universe as the sole reality, and forgets to take into account the role, action and nature of that to which the visible universe appears. But common sense is foolish in this matter, because it is forgetting it real nature, or anyway, its true master. And this is simply a sign of the times.

Consider that the very most complex object we know of is the brain, which has more neural connections than there are stars in the known universe. This organ has evolved through billions of years, and is ultimately itself formed from stardust. The inherent logic by which the universe is itself organised has also given rise to this, and to us. The fact that the universe is so beautifully arrayed ought not to be cause of contention, but only appreciation. The mind and nature itself are co-extensive. The heavens contain many wonders, it is not just all dumb stuff.

Go read some Emerson, for heaven's sake, and stop sticking up for such a stodgy argument. Over and out.

He argued that to think that ordinary objects (like shoes) exist in one way, but that God exists in a different way. is well on the slippery slope to atheism. For if God exists, then God exists just as shoes exist.

'Reality' is a teleological hierarchy of existents, a graduated scale of forms, looking toward the more rational and more complete. This is the Prime Unmoved Mover, who is Mind. (see principle of plenitude); teleological argument for the existence of God.

I am sorry, but I am sure that this is incorrect. Perhaps you can point me to that argument?

I am not a classics scholar, but from my cursory reading, it seems there are many discussions in Summae of the different kinds of existence - angelic, creaturely, and divine. Aquinas, and all of the scholastics, recognised the difference between corporeal and spiritual beings and those with God. Angels, for example, are immaterial forms, whereas creatures are material forms, so they exist in different ways.

This is made explicit throughout Berkeley, who goes to great length to explain how God exists in a different way to humans.

There are modes of existence - philosophy has always recognized that. modes of existence is the proper topic of ontology, is it not? The Ideas exist in a different way to creatures, and so on. I always thought this was basic to philosophy. Perhaps not in the analytic school, who might have abolished such ideas.