[lit-ideas] Re: Realism/Geary on Unreal Temperature
- From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:25:59 -0500
Or as Lenny says:
"…I’ve got a couple of friends of mine, we often sit around the Ritz Bar
having a few liqueurs, and they’re always saying things like that, you know,
things like: Take a table, take it. All right I say, take it, take a table,
but once you’ve taken it, what you going to do with it? Once you’ve got hold
of it, where are you going to take it?"
Mike Geary
Memphis
On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> Clarifying what may in any case remain unclear:-
>
> > when I see a table, the content of
> > what I see is not an actual table but my perception of a
> > table. [Try setting down supper on the content of what I see
> > and you'll see Kant's point].
> >
> > But surely even if we accept this, it leaves open the
> > question of whether that content accurately corresponds to
> > some non-p R that lies beyond it?
> >
> > If so, we may accept "one can’t perceive R" without
> > having to accept the view that 'One can never compare p with
> > R, for there is no way of perceiving R.’
>
> Though the quotations are lifted from RP's post, given the distinction
> drawn between pR (the aspects of Reality that are perceived) and non-pR (the
> aspects of Reality that lie beyond or outside of what exists in perception),
> it should be emphasised that in the paragraph above the meaning of R is
> "non-pR" - for clearly we can and do perceive what exists as a matter of our
> perception e.g. what is presented to me now as my visual field is something
> that exists as a presented visual field and so is part of pR which can be
> perceived.
>
> Amplified further:- the contention of the above paragraph is that, from the
> assumption that we cannot perceive non-pR, it does not follow that we cannot
> compare [or contrast] the content of p with a [conjectured] non-pR.
> For example, while my senses may deceive me that the table I am writing at
> is a certain colour in its 'non-pR' ding-an-sich state, they may be on
> better ground in telling me that its solidity is such that it would hurt my
> forehead more than writing this post were I to smash my head down on it.
>
> Whether we regard this as a definitional truism or a truth of substantive
> metaphysics may be left aside for the moment.
>
>
> Donal
> Shropshire
>
>
>
>
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