Perception and the Physical World

@Fido,

Fido,

You are brilliant*

So, let's say that we 'freeze' an object:

The 'frozen' object then would posess no colour, although if certain light waves (electro-magnetic radiation) were shined upon the object these light waves would signify as to part of the atomic structure of the object. But still 'freezing' the object removes light and thus the object posesses no colour.

The frozen object would also (as was mentioned previously) posess no temperature since by 'freezing' it we have isolated it from the sun and other heating sources. So let us stipulate at least that this object posesses no independent internal sources of heat. Therefore the object posesses no temperature.

Also, let's say the object would not have smells or taste in any way although these qualities too may tell us some information regarding the object, such as molecular or elemental identity etc. But smell and taste, it seems, are of the same part of 'appearance' that colour would be. So the object doesn't posess smell or taste but certain particles of the object may break free and cause the perception of an odour or stir the pallete to a certain taste much as the light stirs the retina to appear in us as colour.

Now, does the object posess any tactile qualities? If it is the light which causes colour as appearance (which I agree that it does) then why isn't it the human nervous system and the human nervous system alone which gives the 'frozen' object an appearance of texture? And it does sound strange to say that an object posesses the quality of smoothness since the object is inanimate, unthinking substance. Smoothness seems a quality of human perceptions, much as the light is the quality of greenness in a leaf. So the object does not posess a texture although the appearance of texture would signal to us something of which the object could ultimately be identified thereby.

Now what of shape? Does the 'frozen' object posess any shape? Since shape would be the appearance I think that shape would also fall into the same problem that colour falls into as colour is light and the object posesses no light, so too shape is what human senses says it is by way of feeling. Shape is the appearance which may tell us something as to that which the object ultimately is, but it remains as much a part of appearance as colour as I see it. It does not, cannot posess shape any more than it can posess light. Shape may be an aspect of it, an aspect which could tell us what it is but, shape is not what it is in itself. How can an object posess shape in itself? It seems that the only thing that posesses shape is shape itself.

And the same with height (extension) and weight. These attributes may exist in themselves but I do not see how an object can posess them without being them. When we weigh an object we see weight, and the weight is something that appears but it is not what the object is in itself. Unless the object is the concept of weight itself then, weight must be appearance. Weight is like light. Weight is seperate from the object (consider also that if 'frozen' in space and small in mass, then there wouldn't even be the appearance 'weight'). And the same goes for height. Height is something seperate from the object (and probably in existence before the object was ever around). So height is like light, it may tell us something but not what the object really is like. If the object is 'frozen' then there exists nothing by which to procure measurement; in this case a tape measure acts in exactly the same way as a light source. You may feel free to call shape, height and weight 'universals' if you wish but they still cannot be what the object is.

So, what is the object itself without accidental appearances?

Every single part or aspect of the object appears also as an object in relation as does the object itself whatever it is. It does seem arbitrary to me to say that we know what the object really is.

I would further note that the cosmological cause of the object that was mentioned is not in the stars per se but seems in the object itself as a set of relations (here cosmological is interchangeable with metaphysical). The object itself seems to me to be a subjective bundle of other objects in relation to other objects etc. This is why I don't believe (as you do) that we posess certain knowledge of what anything is really like outside when we are not directly observing it.

The problem is not merely epistemological, as I see it, but rather the empirical theory of epistemology vs. the rationalist one. Empiricism is at the mercy of scepticism just as rationalism is at the mercy of positivism (or pragmatism). The question seems to be where do we place the locus of the relative terms? There is, as of now, more than one viable solution as to the ultimate identity of physical objects. We can't know what objects really are but we can ascribe to certain theories of what objects are.

@Pythagorean,

Kenneth,

I was thinking, wouldnt a naive realist (as we have already described the term) believe that the sun revolves around the earth instead of the other way 'round?
Smile

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

Kenneth,

I was thinking, wouldnt a naive realist (as we have already described the term) believe that the sun revolves around the earth instead of the other way 'round?

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No. That is why I wondered who those naive realists are supposed to be. And, especially about the insinuation of the word, "naive" as if they were uneducated cavemen. The ordinary man on the street is alleged to be a naive realist. You think that the ordinary man on the street still thinks that the Sun revolves around Earth? The naive realist realizes that the senses are sometimes unreliable. But do you think that if someone believes that he does not see "ideas" or "sense data" that he must be a geocentrist? Naive realism, then, is a pretty easy target.

By the way, you write in reply to another post:

Also a stick when part of it is held under clear water appears bent. When we look at the stick in water are we looking at the real stick?

But do you really think that the stick half-immersed in water really does look bent? I mean, does it look the way a bent stick looks out of water (or even half-immersed in water). Not to me it doesn't. It looks the way a stick half-immersed in water looks. Sort of broken in the middle. But I know (and so does every "naive" realist know) that the stick is not bent, nor broken. It doesn't even look bent or broken. And besides, we (naive realists) see the water too. To cite the fact that the stick looks bent is simply not to cite a fact. It does not look bent.

What would we be looking at, if not a real stick? A figment of our imagination? Or, perhaps a fake stick that someone has placed there to trick us? What are you asking when you are asking whether we are looking at a real stick. ("Is this a stick I see before me? Come, let me clutch thee!" Apologies to Shakespeare- and Mr. Macbeth).

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

Fido,

You are brilliant*

So, let's say that we 'freeze' an object:

The 'frozen' object then would posess no colour, although if certain light waves (electro-magnetic radiation) were shined upon the object these light waves would signify as to part of the atomic structure of the object. But still 'freezing' the object removes light and thus the object posesses no colour.

The frozen object would also (as was mentioned previously) posess no temperature since by 'freezing' it we have isolated it from the sun and other heating sources. So let us stipulate at least that this object posesses no independent internal sources of heat. Therefore the object posesses no temperature.

Also, let's say the object would not have smells or taste in any way although these qualities too may tell us some information regarding the object, such as molecular or elemental identity etc. But smell and taste, it seems, are of the same part of 'appearance' that colour would be. So the object doesn't posess smell or taste but certain particles of the object may break free and cause the perception of an odour or stir the pallete to a certain taste much as the light stirs the retina to appear in us as colour.

Now, does the object posess any tactile qualities? If it is the light which causes colour as appearance (which I agree that it does) then why isn't it the human nervous system and the human nervous system alone which gives the 'frozen' object an appearance of texture? And it does sound strange to say that an object posesses the quality of smoothness since the object is inanimate, unthinking substance. Smoothness seems a quality of human perceptions, much as the light is the quality of greenness in a leaf. So the object does not posess a texture although the appearance of texture would signal to us something of which the object could ultimately be identified thereby.

Now what of shape? Does the 'frozen' object posess any shape? Since shape would be the appearance I think that shape would also fall into the same problem that colour falls into as colour is light and the object posesses no light, so too shape is what human senses says it is by way of feeling. Shape is the appearance which may tell us something as to that which the object ultimately is, but it remains as much a part of appearance as colour as I see it. It does not, cannot posess shape any more than it can posess light. Shape may be an aspect of it, an aspect which could tell us what it is but, shape is not what it is in itself. How can an object posess shape in itself? It seems that the only thing that posesses shape is shape itself.

And the same with height (extension) and weight. These attributes may exist in themselves but I do not see how an object can posess them without being them. When we weigh an object we see weight, and the weight is something that appears but it is not what the object is in itself. Unless the object is the concept of weight itself then, weight must be appearance. Weight is like light. Weight is seperate from the object (consider also that if 'frozen' in space and small in mass, then there wouldn't even be the appearance 'weight'). And the same goes for height. Height is something seperate from the object (and probably in existence before the object was ever around). So height is like light, it may tell us something but not what the object really is like. If the object is 'frozen' then there exists nothing by which to procure measurement; in this case a tape measure acts in exactly the same way as a light source. You may feel free to call shape, height and weight 'universals' if you wish but they still cannot be what the object is.

So, what is the object itself without accidental appearances?

Every single part or aspect of the object appears also as an object in relation as does the object itself whatever it is. It does seem arbitrary to me to say that we know what the object really is.

I would further note that the cosmological cause of the object that was mentioned is not in the stars per se but seems in the object itself as a set of relations (here cosmological is interchangeable with metaphysical). The object itself seems to me to be a subjective bundle of other objects in relation to other objects etc. This is why I don't believe (as you do) that we posess certain knowledge of what anything is really like outside when we are not directly observing it.

The problem is not merely epistemological, as I see it, but rather the empirical theory of epistemology vs. the rationalist one. Empiricism is at the mercy of scepticism just as rationalism is at the mercy of positivism (or pragmatism). The question seems to be where do we place the locus of the relative terms? There is, as of now, more than one viable solution as to the ultimate identity of physical objects. We can't know what objects really are but we can ascribe to certain theories of what objects are.

What objects are is one question. What knowledge is of objects is another question. I go with Kant that knowledge is judgement. Concepts are a form of judgement. We cannot know about single objects as phenomenon. It is like the doctor with the patient in his office with a strange rash. After consulting all of his medical books he asked the patient if he had ever had the rash before. Yes, was the answer. Well, said the doctor; you've got it again. That will be fifty dollars. Until we have seen a phenomenon twice we cannot identify it, and identity is the beginning of knowledge.

With an identity we have a concept. Now, when we think of a thing using this concept; what comes to mind. If I say a thing is frozen, then certainly. Concepts are not real, but a piece of reality pulled out of reality. So if I say tree, what tree do you think of? Is the tree complete, roots and all? Is it in the ground, before a back ground? Is it all trees, a generic tree, a combination tree, or a particular tree, or just the name: Tree?

You see; when I think, and when I draw conceptions into mind I really have no idea if it is the same as you draw into mind thinking of the same conception. I agree that it is judgements, but in my particular case, my judgements are far short of the real. I am a builder, formerly of structures, now of tools or toys. Beginning with a need I form a conception. How real is it? It has dimension, but no weight. If I must conceive of weight it has a sum of numbers. If it is a thing like a box, with sides, the sides are invisible when I conceive of the dimensions. I cannot, no matter how I try, ever get all of the entire conception complete in my mind. It consists rather of a set of judgements in a sort of order of importance, like a pile of blueprints, and specifications. Were it not for a common name I am not certain my conception of a tree would be anything like your conception of a tree.

So, I think conceptions, as knowledge, as true representations of reality will never equate exactly with what is real. Identity is the beginning of conception, and conception is the beginning of knowledge. Only the reality is complete, and the conception is an (actually) incomplete re-creation of reality in our minds. It is a representation. Reality is something we sense, and cannot deny. To do with it. To change it. To explain it. To understand it one must form conceptions of what we are seeing, accepting that conceptions are always incomplete, incorrect, and yet often complete in some senses as objects we see are not. We see only one side of the moon. No one ever conceives of the moon having only one side. That is where Kant's transendental imagination comes into play. Concepts can be complete even when objects conceived are not demonstrably complete.

Please don't take this as a reply. Some of what you said made me think before I had given it a full consideration.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

It is wrong in a sense to say a leaf 'is' green. n.

It is wrong in a sense to say a leaf 'is' green.

In what sense is that? "The leaf is green" means that the leaf has the property of being green. And that is true. The property may be a secondary property, which is to say that it is an "interactive property" because the leaf has to appear green to someone with normal perceptual faculties in normal condition, but that does not mean that the leaf does not have the (secondary) property of being green. So, the leaf is green.

Things are not real only because we perceive them. There are plenty of colorless, and oderless gasses to prove that we can be killed by what we cannot perceive. .

Of course not. There are many things that exist (I am not sure what you mean by "real") which we do not, and cannot, directly observe. What made you think I thought that only what we can directly observe is real?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

It is wrong in a sense to say a leaf 'is' green.

In what sense is that? "The leaf is green" means that the leaf has the property of being green. And that is true. The property may be a secondary property, which is to say that it is an "interactive property" because the leaf has to appear green to someone with normal perceptual faculties in normal condition, but that does not mean that the leaf does not have the (secondary) property of being green. So, the leaf is green.

Just as our language suggests, we know things by what they are, and what they have. A man is a man. A rich man is a man who has money. A leaf is a leaf. A leaf in some instances has a green color. What a thing is, is the quality is shares with all other like phenomena described by the same concept.

Quote:

Things are not real only because we perceive them. There are plenty of colorless, and oderless gasses to prove that we can be killed by what we cannot perceive. .

Of course not. There are many things that exist (I am not sure what you mean by "real") which we do not, and cannot, directly observe. What made you think I thought that only what we can directly observe is real?

What I Mean when I say real is essentially matter: Res equals thing, and from res we have re(s)ality. Yet, I would be the first to admit of hypothetical, or extra sensory realities, like justice, or virtue when these are only forms of behavior or relationship. The question is regarding perception, and most of what can be percieved will always be beyond our senses either because it is too distant, does not have taste, smell, or perceptible mass; or because it is too small, like the atom. Still, the whole cosmos is built of imperceptible bits and pieces, and if we can judge by sense then at least our part of reality actually exists.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

No. That is why I wondered who those naive realists are supposed to be. And, especially about the insinuation of the word, "naive" as if they were uneducated cavemen. The ordinary man on the street is alleged to be a naive realist. You think that the ordinary man on the street still thinks that the Sun revolves around Earth? The naive realist realizes that the senses are sometimes unreliable. But do you think that if someone believes that he does not see "ideas" or "sense data" that he must be a geocentrist? Naive realism, then, is a pretty easy target.

By the way, you write in reply to another post:

Also a stick when part of it is held under clear water appears bent. When we look at the stick in water are we looking at the real stick?

But do you really think that the stick half-immersed in water really does look bent? I mean, does it look the way a bent stick looks out of water (or even half-immersed in water). Not to me it doesn't. It looks the way a stick half-immersed in water looks. Sort of broken in the middle. But I know (and so does every "naive" realist know) that the stick is not bent, nor broken. It doesn't even look bent or broken. And besides, we (naive realists) see the water too. To cite the fact that the stick looks bent is simply not to cite a fact. It does not look bent.

What would we be looking at, if not a real stick? A figment of our imagination? Or, perhaps a fake stick that someone has placed there to trick us? What are you asking when you are asking whether we are looking at a real stick. ("Is this a stick I see before me? Come, let me clutch thee!" Apologies to Shakespeare- and Mr. Macbeth).

When I see a thing, I see a thing. When I recognize a thing I do so through comparison with a concept. The concept may allow me to know more than what I can see of what I am seeing, and yet I see what I see when I see.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Just as our language suggests, we know things by what they are, and what they have. A man is a man. A rich man is a man who has money. A leaf is a leaf. A leaf in some instances has a green color. What a thing is, is the quality is shares with all other like phenomena described by the same concept.

.

So does that mean you believe that leaves are sometimes green, or don't you? After you clear that up for me, you can go on to explain.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

So does that mean you believe that leaves are sometimes green, or don't you? After you clear that up for me, you can go on to explain.

Green color is a quality some leaves have, not something they are. The reason they look green is because of what leaves are, which usually reflects green light while absorbing other colors of the visible spectrum of light. Not all leaves appear green. As a quality some leaves have it is inessential to the definition of a leaf, even to the concept of a leaf.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Green color is a quality some leaves have, not something they are. The reason they look green is because of what leaves are, which usually reflects green light while absorbing other colors of the visible spectrum of light. Not all leaves appear green. As a quality some leaves have it is inessential to the definition of a leaf, even to the concept of a leaf.

In English, the statement, leaves are green, doesn't mean leaves are identical with green, since that would make no sense. It means that green is a property of leaves.The "is" in "leaves are green" is the "is" of predication, not the "is" of identity. I would not mean by "butter is yellow" that butter is the same thing as yellow, since that would make no sense either. What, I wonder, would make you think that when I say that leaves are green, that I mean to say that leaves and green are identical? I am a fluent English speaker.

I know why leaves have the property of being green, as I have, I think, indicated. And I know too that leaves are sometimes not green, and that the property of being green is an accidental property of leaves, but it is nonetheless a property. Not all properties are essential properties. For instance my height is not an essential propety of mine, but, of course, it is a property of mine.

So, do you think that leaves are green or not? (And, in English, the sentence, "leaves are green" means, "some leaves, some of the time, have the property of being green")

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

In English, the statement, leaves are green, doesn't mean leaves are identical with green, since that would make no sense. It means that green is a property of leaves.The "is" in "leaves are green" is the "is" of predication, not the "is" of identity. I would not mean by "butter is yellow" that butter is the same thing as yellow, since that would make no sense either. What, I wonder, would make you think that when I say that leaves are green, that I mean to say that leaves and green are identical? I am a fluent English speaker.

I know why leaves have the property of being green, as I have, I think, indicated. And I know too that leaves are sometimes not green, and that the property of being green is an accidental property of leaves, but it is nonetheless a property. Not all properties are essential properties. For instance my height is not an essential propety of mine, but, of course, it is a property of mine.

So, do you think that leaves are green or not? (And, in English, the sentence, "leaves are green" means, "some leaves, some of the time, have the property of being green")

I will be the first to admit that I say some stupid, thoughtless words. I am cursed with trying to pull away the veil of perception to reveal the inner workings of things. My parents used to say of me that I liked to take things apart to see why they didn't work anymore; and they were correct. I am a mechanic. I have rebuilt motors, transmissions, carburators. My younger brother is better yet, working for a NHRA Drag race team, and one of the best in the country. I am fearless in the books I have cracked open and failed to understand. I have challenged my perceptions of morality, civility, and normalcy. I recognize that perception is our way of presenting what we see to ourselves in a coherant manor. To the extent that we follow false talk with false thought we have defeated our ultimate purpose, which is not truth, but understanding.

Just like everyone else who sees that leaves look green, and like every one who recognizes a leaf by its green appearance, I will say that leaves are green. I love it. Green is my favorite color. Yet, it is colors that are green and not leaves. And you are not anyone, or every one, but some one quite specific, who respects the truth even if that bears some explaination. Leaves appear green, but are not green, and in fact are made out of all the other colors they can store as carbon compound energy. What a thing is, is in no sense apart from the colors it will absorb and emit, or reflect. Optics is a branch of physics that tells us much about the inner workings of an atom. A Leaf, like all matter, has its atomic structure. We do not perceive atoms directly, but we do perceive some molecular and cristaline structures which absorb, reflect, and refract light in such a fashion or color as to inform us more fully of the inner structure.

Now that I have written all this, I think of an analogy to the leaf. The leaf reflects green light. Does that make it green? If you go to a canyon wall and shout. Is it the wall that is echoing, or your voice?

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

I will be the first to admit that I say some stupid, thoughtless words. I am cursed with trying to pull away the veil of perception to reveal the inner workings of things. My parents used to say of me that I liked to take things apart to see why they didn't work anymore; and they were correct. I am a mechanic. I have rebuilt motors, transmissions, carburators. My younger brother is better yet, working for a NHRA Drag race team, and one of the best in the country. I am fearless in the books I have cracked open and failed to understand. I have challenged my perceptions of morality, civility, and normalcy. I recognize that perception is our way of presenting what we see to ourselves in a coherant manor. To the extent that we follow false talk with false thought we have defeated our ultimate purpose, which is not truth, but understanding.

Just like everyone else who sees that leaves look green, and like every one who recognizes a leaf by its green appearance, I will say that leaves are green. I love it. Green is my favorite color. Yet, it is colors that are green and not leaves. And you are not anyone, or every one, but some one quite specific, who respects the truth even if that bears some explaination. Leaves appear green, but are not green, and in fact are made out of all the other colors they can store as carbon compound energy. What a thing is, is in no sense apart from the colors it will absorb and emit, or reflect. Optics is a branch of physics that tells us much about the inner workings of an atom. A Leaf, like all matter, has its atomic structure. We do not perceive atoms directly, but we do perceive some molecular and cristaline structures which absorb, reflect, and refract light in such a fashion or color as to inform us more fully of the inner structure.

Now that I have written all this, I think of an analogy to the leaf. The leaf reflects green light. Does that make it green? If you go to a canyon wall and shout. Is it the wall that is echoing, or your voice?

Yes. Leaves reflect green light, and that is why leaves are green. It is good to have received a direct answer from you: leaves are green. But it took more time than it should have done. Some color is green. That means only that green is a color, or, better, "green" is the name of a color. It is objects that are green.

@kennethamy,

Kenneth; Dogs bark. Are dogs bark? What one does is different that what one is, N'est pas?

If a dog sees the same tree as we, would the tree be green if the dog does not see green?

Fido wrote:

Kenneth; Dogs bark. Are dogs bark? What one does is different that what one is, N'est pas?

If a dog sees the same tree as we, would the tree be green if the dog does not see green?

Light is green, and all colors and invisible light of the electro magnetic spectrum. Yet, light is matter. Quickly moving matter; and if there were no matter, and all of the matter of the cosmos were light, it would be possible by slowing and cooling light to remake the cosmos. So light is matter. The energy released in the explosion of atomic and thermonuclear bombs is light. And of course light is released by the Sun as a result of fusion.

I sure know how to edit. It looks like I need a reply.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

In English, the statement, leaves are green, doesn't mean leaves are identical with green, since that would make no sense. It means that green is a property of leaves.The "is" in "leaves are green" is the "is" of predication, not the "is" of identity. I would not mean by "butter is yellow" that butter is the same thing as yellow, since that would make no sense either. What, I wonder, would make you think that when I say that leaves are green, that I mean to say that leaves and green are identical? I am a fluent English speaker.

I know why leaves have the property of being green, as I have, I think, indicated. And I know too that leaves are sometimes not green, and that the property of being green is an accidental property of leaves, but it is nonetheless a property. Not all properties are essential properties. For instance my height is not an essential propety of mine, but, of course, it is a property of mine.

What would be, I wonder, an essential property (?) of a leaf?

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

What would be, I wonder, an essential property (?) of a leaf?

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No idea. I suppose you would have to ask a botanist that question. Probably botany contains some definition of "leaf" if leaf is a natural kind of thing.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Kenneth; Dogs bark. Are dogs bark? What one does is different that what one is, N'est pas?

If a dog sees the same tree as we, would the tree be green if the dog does not see green?

Light is green, and all colors and invisible light of the electro magnetic spectrum. Yet, light is matter. Quickly moving matter; and if there were no matter, and all of the matter of the cosmos were light, it would be possible by slowing and cooling light to remake the cosmos. So light is matter. The energy released in the explosion of atomic and thermonuclear bombs is light. And of course light is released by the Sun as a result of fusion.

I sure know how to edit. It looks like I need a reply.

The sentence, "Dogs are bark" makes no sense. But the sentence, "Dogs bark" does, of course, make sense. It means that dogs have the property of being able to bark, or do bark on occasion. Why have we gone from leaves are green to dogs bark, I wonder?

I wish you would stop giving the example, "trees are green", I know it is a slip, but it is bothersome. Leaves are green, and if dogs are not able to see green because of the constitution of their visual faculties, leaves are green nevertheless, since as I have already pointed out a number of times, to say that leaves are green is to say that a normal (human) observer would, under normal conditions, see leaves as being green. You might as well ask whether if a bat cannot see colors whether there are colors. When we say that dogs cannot see that leaves are green, we are already assuming that leaves are green, just as when we say that bats cannot see colors, we are assuming that there are colors that bats cannot see.

I don't think that it is true that light is green. Light, so far as I know, consists of electrons, and I did not think that electrons had any color at all. Am I mistaken? It is that light rays from a particular part of the spectrum bounce off a leaf (or other object) and strike our eyes that causes the leaf to be green. But light is, itself, not green, or any other color.

I agree that light is matter, since electrons are matter, and light consists of electrons.

@kennethamy,

Fido, kennethamy,

An essential property of the physical world would be a necessary proposition. Those who believe in the reality of essential properties are implicitly asking us to believe in 'universals'. Those who refuse to believe in universals are pragmatists (or positivists, or language and logical analysts) who however, must accept the incompleteness theory of logic and mathematics. And more importantly the incompleteness of the physical sciences. Pragmatism implicitly priviledges the perceiver without due grounds of justification upon a non-theoretical, anti-intellectual frame-work.

A non-pragmatist who accepts the inherent incompletness of the physical sciences while maintaining that necessary propositions (or essential properties) about the world are not a priori 'universals' are called naive realists with good reason.

Philosophically speaking, there can be no essential property that is also a material property unless you have a proof of the Theory Of Everything.

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

Fido, kennethamy,

An essential property of the physical world would be a necessary proposition. Those who believe in the reality of essential properties are implicitly asking us to believe in 'universals'. Those who refuse to believe in universals are pragmatists (or positivists, or language and logical analysts) who however, must accept the incompleteness theory of logic and mathematics. And more importantly the incompleteness of the physical sciences. Pragmatism implicitly priviledges the perceiver without due grounds of justification upon a non-theoretical, anti-intellectual frame-work.

A non-pragmatist who accepts the inherent incompletness of the physical sciences while maintaining that necessary propositions (or essential properties) about the world are not a priori 'universals' are called naive realists with good reason.

Philosophically speaking, there can be no essential property that is also a material property unless you have a proof of the Theory Of Everything.

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Well said, Well said indeed Pythagorean!! I have saved your post for future reading.

The 'perspective of the viewer' rules all Philosophy and Science. To me a 'Theory of Everything' can never be know by us in our limited experiences her on Earth. All we can do is speculate.

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

What would be, I wonder, an essential property (?) of a leaf?

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Color of some sort is an essential property of a leaf. I would suggest that essential property is different from essence because a property, even an essential one, is often a variable. Further, essence is a quality a leaf shares with the rest of the plant it is a part of, perhaps with every plant of the same genus. The leaf exists whether we see it or not, whether we see the color of it or not, or whether it is seen by us or animals which do not see green. It is easy enough to say that leaves are green. Language has that social quality that allows a great deal of flexibility in regard to the truth. If we are looking at the being, the essence of a thing, the thing in itself, it is important to clear away much of the inessential, with the undertanding that if we do so our reality made of pure conceptions would not resemble much our real reality. This is because we perceive with our senses but know with our conceptions so that it is easy to say we perceive with our minds, and leave our senses out of the loop completely. (Here, Hildegger on Kant and the problem of metaphysics, is useful, and if asked, I will try to report on what I have gathered from it.)

Philosophy demands the ability to step out of the real world and into the abstract world, and back again at will. The real world is full of sensational things, things which are not as they seem, and things whose purpose is obscured by intention, or condition. Many philosophers could see things clearly, and some times starkly, if not always correctly because they were blind to some qualities of life which most of us cannot see beyond.

@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

Fido, kennethamy,

An essential property of the physical world would be a necessary proposition. Those who believe in the reality of essential properties are implicitly asking us to believe in 'universals'. Those who refuse to believe in universals are pragmatists (or positivists, or language and logical analysts) who however, must accept the incompleteness theory of logic and mathematics. And more importantly the incompleteness of the physical sciences. Pragmatism implicitly priviledges the perceiver without due grounds of justification upon a non-theoretical, anti-intellectual frame-work.

A non-pragmatist who accepts the inherent incompletness of the physical sciences while maintaining that necessary propositions (or essential properties) about the world are not a priori 'universals' are called naive realists with good reason.

Philosophically speaking, there can be no essential property that is also a material property unless you have a proof of the Theory Of Everything.

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I did not claim that there are essential properties. However, it seems to me that an essential property of gold, for instance, is an atomic number of 79, and an essential property of water is H20. Nothing could be water which was not, H20.

But all this is irrelevant to whether objects like leaves are green. I suppose you agree, then, that leaves are green?

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