the life divine

In this second and concluding post on appearance of objects and reality, I try to give my own judgement on the controversy between the two views presented by the sceptic ( Russell ) and Phillips on the matter of our knowledge of the external physical world.

The statement 2 ( please refer to the previous post ) presents a view ( of our knowledge of the external physical world ) which scores over the view presented by the statement 1 in the sense that in the view presented by statement 1, the sceptic suggests that reality exists independent of the observer and that the sense-perception leads us only to an inference about real objects from what is immediately known. Sceptic suggests that we need some other principle ( some sort of a hidden variable theory ) that might help us to know whether what we see is apparent or real. But the possibility that such a principle might be irrational and/or beyond humans takes us closer to the view prersented by statement 2. If reality is somehow hidden from us and is purely inferential or accessible only inferentially or that we can not access it directly, then is there a use for such a reality? I personally see no objective and subjective sense of something which remains hidden from us forever. To postulate such a reality is useless in my view. I regret being empiricist in my approach but that's the way I think. In practical situations the various things, concepts, data et cetera we use are in a way result of sense-data and sensations and since we have come successfully this far with these notions, the concept of a real table hidden from us is redundant. It's better to think that what we perceive is indeed the real object. We can always refine our notions if we do find exceptions in future and that seems more pragmatic than holding adherence to a hidden variable theory ( what we perceive is sense-data rather than the reality as such ) for which we have no objective scientific or subjective scientific or rational justification.

They say that in philosophy if you adhere to one of the two conflicting ideologies, there is something philosophically wrong with you. It is better to try a democratic approach. But to me, it seem that in this case it is better to adhere to things we know from our experience, the only tool we have got to be a part of this ever changing world.

Concluded

I was reading this piece written by Bertrand Russell. It actually forms the first chapter of his 1912 work The Problems Of Philosophy. Russell argues that the real table, if there exists one, is not known to us immediately ( used in the sense of 'directly'). Rather the properties revealed to us are the observer dependent attributes termed as the sense data which are not the same as table but are related to the real table. D.Z. Phillips, a renowned religious philosopher countered Russell's view. Unfortunately I couldn't find that article, titled : What can I know ?, on the net ( which is surprising ) but I will sum it up.

He basically said that we infact do see and sense the real table instead of just the sense data.His whole point was that such a doubt about the real table being perceived or not was a waste of philosophy and that:

" Why should we doubt what seems to be so evident as to not need stating? "

He said that Russell's argument put forward two realms : a realm of the real objects and a realm of the sense data associated with them. For example, a stick appears to be bent when dipped half in water. As per Russell, we have a realm where stick is bent and a realm where it is not. Phillips's point is that being bent and being straight are attributes of the same stick so all we need is the notion of stick and not the demarcation of real objects and the sense data. Now I reproduce last two paragraphs of Phillips's piece ( italics original ).

The unintelligibility involved in the notions of two realms, one of sense-data, and the other of external objects, is a far-reaching one. It may seem as if, irrespective of what we say of the latter, sense can be made of the notion of the mind and its sensory-experiences. After all, according to the sceptic ( here Russell ), this is our necessary starting-point in our search for knowledge. But, logically, this is not the case. If we sever the connection between the notion of experience and our normal surroundings, tthe notion of the mind and its experiences will itself become unintelligible.

Consider the simple instruction, "Think of a harbour." I can not obey it unless I know something about harbours. I must be able to recognize a harbour. Unless I can do this, someone will retort when I describe what I am thinking, "No, that's not a harbour. You're thinking of something else." My thinking, my mental image of a harbour, is not self-authenticating. It is by reference to harbours and our dealings with them that the correctness of my thinking will be assessed. I can obey the instructions, "Think of a triangle," or "Think of the colour 'red,'" only because I have a wider acquaintance with triangles and colours. But the sceptic thinks that we can strip away these wider surroundings and still speak intelligibly of the mind and its ideas. To him, the mind, so conceived, is unproblematic. What is problematic, it is claimed, is how we can ever know that we are in contact with the external world. The reverse is true. If we forget our external surroundings, the notion of the mind and its ideas becomes a meaningless concatenation of sensory data. The intelligibility of private experiences depends on external surroundings that we share.

Now consider the following two statements ( first one is from Russell's article and the second from Phillips's piece ) :

1. "The real table [ that is believed to exist in the normal physical surrounding ] is not immediately known to us at all, but must be an inference from what is immediately known [ namely, sense-data of the table ]."

2. "If we sever the connection between the notion of experience [ that is, sensation of sense-data ] and our normal [ physical ] surroundings, tthe notion of the mind and its experiences will itself become unintelligible."

In this post, I shall give my interpretation of the argument that underlies the statement 2, which is advanced in criticism of the position expressed by statement 1. In the next post I shall present my own judgement on the controversy between the views presented by statements 1 and 2 on the matter of our knowledge of the external physical world.

The statement 1 suggests, in a way, that reality does not exist independent of the observer and vice-versa. Only that statement 1 is a more pragmatic way of suggesting this argument. What statement 2 suggests is that there exists a real table and that we can not know the real table. We can only infer that a real table, independent of our observations, exists which is why we are obtaining the sense-data. This indirect nature of realizing the existence of a real table is what is suggested by the phrase 'not immediately known to us.' Scientifically the statement 1 is in line with the Quantum Hidden Variable Theories, forwarded by the likes of de Broglie, Bohm et cetera where the reality is independent of the observation process but is some how hidden from the observer. The statement 2 is in line with the usual Quantum epistemology. In fact statement 2 suggests a empiricist view point towards the reality, the solipsist belief.

It might not be true to talk about a table independently of the observer. The observation process involves previous experiences and that segregating experience ( apparent world ) and the physical surroundings will create problems like the one sampled by Phillips ( the harbour problem ).

Suppose someone asks a person to "imagine a market." Unless the person has a prior notion of as to what a market is, he will not be able to imagine it ( and describe it correctly ). The kind of seperation that we are led to here will cause the person to not be able to imagine the market. This is because we, by statement 1, are undermining the correspondence between the observed and the real. So unless we regard that our experiences indeed pertain to reality, the notion of two seperate realms ( the mind and the surroundings ) is unintelligible. But when we do regard this, we have already gone past the notion of seperation.

To be concluded