Epistemological and Ontological Idealism

Arguments for idealism generally come in to forms. There are epistemological arguments that attempt to show that the world as it is known to us is essentially mind dependent. Kantian arguments are the most famous example of this sort of a approach. So too are some of Berkeley's arguments for idealism, such as the arguments presented with such force in the _Dialogues_ showing that the only empirically defensible concept of a material thing is one that identifies matter with a system of ideas. Ontological arguments for idealism, on the other hand, attempt to show that there is something about the nature of reality that requires that it be of a spiritual or mind dependent character. Thus McTaggart argues that the world must consist of substances and that the only candidate for substance that we have available is that which we find when we reflect on our own minds. Berkeley too presented an ontological argument for idealism when he argued that the very conception of a mind independent entity was incoherent. The famous master argument was not intended as a claim about merely knowable reality, it was intended, it seems to be a claim about reality as such whether known by us our not. This last claim of Berkeley's has always struck me as tendentious because it appears to attempt to prove a negative: How can we know that the only thing that is real is minds, unless we presuppose that our knowledge exhausts all that is real? And how can any non-omniscient being make that claim?
An answer to this last question can be made by those who endorse a non-realist theory of truth. To take a cheap and easy example, if verificationism is true, then the claim that there is a reality utterly independent of our mode of cognition is not false but meaningless. On these sorts of views the sentence, "There is a reality that is impossible for us to experience" has no cognitive content at all. And this brings out another feature of the distinction between ontological and epistemological idealism. Ontological idealism is perfectly compatible with a realist theory of truth. Thus Berkeley is perfectly happy claiming that, at least when we are "thinking with the learn'd," the literal truth of statements depends on the existence of some reality "out there" that corresponds to it. The difference between Berkeley and metaphysical realists is not with respect to what makes a statement true, but rather with respect to the sorts of things are truthmakers for propositions, to wit, minds and ideas.
Personally I have never really understood the various sorts of non-realist theories of truth. Coherentist and pragmatic theories of truth seem to me to be either obviously false, or really just disquised theories of justification or knowlege. Yet it does seem to me that any variety of idealism is going to be in one limited sense epistemic. Whatever claims about reality we may make, we can only really justify them with respect to the reality that we have some conception of. Kantian things in themselves can never be disproven. The best one can hope to do with respect to such hypothetical entities is to show that such an hypothesis is superfluous, not that necessarily, such things do not exist.
So my own argument for idealism, grounded as it is in the claim that existence is an essential property of consciousness, is an ontological idealism. My claim is that the epistemic claim of the cogito requires an ontological ground. I can only know I exist if there is a necessary connection between existence itself and consciousness or the self. Otherwise I may know I am thinking, and yet not recognize that this thinking must be existent thinking. So the essential premise, the pivotal claim is (1) Consciousness essentially exists. But this claim only gets us to idealism if we can also claim (2) Nothing else exhibits this characteristic of existence. And it is here that the epistemological caveat appears--I can only speak of what I can think of. I can confirm as a phenomenological datum that no perceived object exhibits the characteristic of consciousness. I can even go further and in Berkleian manner argue that no conceivable material thing has the property of existence. Its not just that in fact I am not perceiving material things. but I cannot even in imagination combine the property of existence (which I am aware of in the cogito) with the material things. This shows that at least of those concrete particulars I am aware of (minds and material objects) it is only the mind that exists. Not only do I affirm with Meinong that there are non-existent objects. I affirm the stronger claim that all material things are non-existent objects. But the epistemological limitation remains. The objects that I claim cannot exist are perceivable objects. I cannot by this method show that there is nothing else that also has this property. In fact I may have to admit that there are some things, universals for example, which actually do exhibit existence even though they are not of the character of consciousness or the mind. The idealist claim,though ontological, is thus limited. It is not reality as such, but only reality insofar as I can conceive of it (that is, the concrete particular reality, ignoring universals for the moment), which necessarily does not exist. This may be an "apparently outrageous view" as one reviewer called it, but it is also limited to reality as conceived. Kantian things in themselves may exist even if they are not conscious, but if there are any such "things" they also must not have the character of the material world that is actually conceived and thought of.

dualism vs. idealism

Those of us who agree that both the qualitative and intentional character of consciousness is irreducible to so-called matter have a choice, we can be either dualists or idealists. Dualism is more popular than idealism (though their numbers are smaller than the hordes of materialists), but is this really the best approach to take if we want to affirm the reality of the mental? Dualists have a problem of reconciling the mind with the assumed pre-existence of dead matter. Dualists therefore feel dialectical pressure to make the mind into some sort of appendage to the body. For dualists, the problem of how mind and matter interact is a real problem--if we take materialist causation as our paradigm, then it *is* hard to see how the non-material mind fits in. This is why so many contemporary dualists feel driven to weird ass epiphenomenalism.but if mind is really essential to reality, then there is no mind/matter gap. We get all the advantages of materialist monism without its obvious drawbacks

negative facts

Assume that every true proposition needs a truthmaker. A truthmaker is something that renders a statemetn true. So "deer exist" is true in virtue of some deer existing somewhere. "Barack Obama exists' in virtue of the fact that that there is this one person, Barack Obama.

But what about "Bilbo does not exist" or "Hobbits do not exist"

Well, if Bilbo exists were true, we would say it was made true in virtue of Bilbo actually existing.

what is wrong with saying that "Bilbo does not exist" is just made true by the fact or state of affairs that Bilbo does not exist, that is, Bilbo does not have the property of existence.

Almost all defenders of the view that true propositions require truthmakers reject this move. Instead they make arcane suggestions, e.g. "the universe has the property of lacking hobbits"

Once again,, the prejudice in favor of the actual wrecks havoc on metaphysics.

consequentialism

Has anyone else noticed that, among Christian philosophers, Utilitarianism is a definite minority position EXCEPT when dealing with the problem of evil. Suffering is bad in itself, but a necessary condition for character development or a necessary byproduct of the goodness of free will.

What is especially strange about this is, if anything, utilitarian cost/benefit analyses make less sense from "God's perspective" so to speak, than from ours. For us, we live in a world with many difficult situations and forced choices. War is hell, but if the alternative is Nazi domination of Europe--what are you going to do?

But God is in no such situation. To be sure, Plantinga et al may insist that God is restricted in creation by those mysterious "counterfactuals of freedom," and others hold that God's ignorance of future contingents and respect for free will is likewize restrictive. But the crucial differences remain. God makes these moral calculations before creation (on traditional views of omniscience, God fine tunes everything before creation)

Isn't there a moral distinction between (1) finding yourself in a lifeboat forced to thow some over to save the rest and (2) creating the lifeboat scenerio itself when there is the alternative not to?

I may be, in some circumstances justified in sacrificing some for the greater good, but if this is true it is only because I am forced to-I have to pick the 'lesser of two evils'. But God could have chosen not to create at all. For us, life being what it is, there are hard choices that are forced on us. God, too, has to choose, but the choices are not forced in the same way since God always has the option not to create at all.

Animal souls

The problem of evil is most forceful when we consider an individual whoose life, on balance, is a bad thing. Assuming God loves his creatures, it would seem to follow that God would not allow any of God's creatures to suffer to such an extent that it would literally be better for them not to exist. For example, a child who dies at age 2 and has lived a lifeconsisting of constant hunger and brutality. One is naturally compelled to think that such a circumstance is one that no loving God could permit.

But the Christian has an out here, in the form of the afterlife. If our human lives are really just a small subset of a much greater existence, it may still be true that the aforementioned toddler does have a life that, overall, is better for him or her.

But the problem is deeper than this, for suffering is not limited to human beings, but also non-human animals. And it is generally recognized that animal pain provides one of the most forceful examples in support of the inductive argument from evil (e.g Rowe's deer).

My question is what would be wrong with supposing that non-human animals also have an extra-mundane existence, as Bishop Butler and John Wesley both held. I don't know what the theologial consensus is on this point. But it seems an obvious position to hold if one really believes in a God that loves all creatures. Futhermore, such a position conforms well with what has been recently learned about the intellectual capacities of non-humans. Holding that there is a firm distinction between human and non-human has been on empirically shakey grounds ever since Jane Goodall's observations of the chimpanzees.

Kant on the Ontological Argument

Kant claims the ontological argument is unsound because existence is not a predicate. Since existene is not "something' that can be part of our concept of a thing, it can not be part of our concept of God. Basically Kant thinks existence consists in the application of a concept to reality. He foreshadows the Russellian view of existence as a second order property.

My concern with Kant's critique lies in the relationship between two claims:

(1) Existence is not a real predicate

and


(2) Existence is not a first order property


I don't think (1) entails (2)

To be a "real predicate" is to be part of the concept of a thing. To be a property is to be part of a thing (or instantiated by the thing--the point is properties deal with reality, predicates with concepts)

Suppose there was a feature of reality that could not be part of the concept of a thing. Surely we cannot rule out a priori the possibility of such a property.

But how could such a property be known? if it is not part of the concept, how do we even thing about it?

My answer is to suggest that thinking by means of concepts is only one way to understand something. I can think of pain by means of a concept (i had a bad headache yesterday) OR I can think of pain by directly experiencing the pain. Only the former requires a concept.

I think that the cogito provides us with an example of a property being present phenomenologically, but which may, as Kant says, never be a part of our concept of something. When I know I exist, I know something about me intuitively, not by means of concepts. So I have reason to think that existence is a property even if Kant is right that existence is not a real predicate.

Another way of making the same point is to consider whether it is proper to think of consciousness as an object at all. Perhaps our concepts are limited to cognition of objects, but that which is aware of objects is of a radically different ontological kind.( compare Berkeley on notions and ideas.)

Could there be a non-existent consciousness?

My earlier argument pretty quickly assumed that If existence is a property of consciousness, it is a necessary property. I took for granted that there could not be non-existent consciousness, though there may be non-existent objects.


But why suppose this to be the case. Of course there are those who either deny existence is a property or hold that it is a property that everything has. I think there is at least a phenomenological distinction between:


(1) I am aware of a chair


and


(2) I am aware of my self (or my awareness)



Only (2) contains the guarantee of existence. Indeed, if (1) guaranteed existence, skeptical arguments would no longer keep us up at night.



But consider this case: In a dream I encounter Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is presented as a person, not as an inanimate object. Therefore there is a sense in which if we allow non-existent objects, we need, on similiar grounds to allow non-existent persons. And if we allow that persons are conscious, it then follows that there is non-existent consciousness.


This conclusion can be avoided by denying non-existent objects altogether. Stubborn Meinongian that I am, I am not going to take that route.


Rather I propose we recognize that there are two different ways in which we can be aware of a consciousness, and it is only the first person way, my awareness of my awareness, that guarantees existence.


Sherlock Holmes is presented, in the dream, as being conscious--but his consciousness is not presented to me in an intuitive way. Rather it is presented after the manner that the back of a building is presented. In Husserl's terminology, it is presented as "merely meant." There is no intuitive grasp of consciousness when we are presented with the other

But this does not solve the problem. We are considering not whether or not we have an intuitive grasp of Sherlock Holmes' consciousness--if we did, we would know it to exist, and Sherlock Holmes would cease to be a nonexistent person. And here we see a disanalogy between consciousenss and nonexistent objects. While I may merely think of a unicorn, i can also have an intuitive awareness of a unicorn (in a dream or hallucination). But I can never have an intuitive grasp of a non-existent consciousness--if I did, I would then know the consciousness to exist.

Furthermore, if we suppose that "there are" nonexistent consciousness, then we would have to allow that Sherlock Holmes could perform the reductio. Just as the nonexistent holmes can have the property of walking, so to the nonexistent holmes can, it seems, have the property of thinking about his thinking and concluding that he exists.

But this, I take it, is absurd.

What we need to do, I think, is to go back and limit the class of nonexistent objects to those that can be presented in a intuitive way. An "object" which can only be "meant", which can never be present in person, must be understood in some other way. Similiarly, just because I can seem to think of an impossible object (the last prime number, for example) is not, by itslef, sufficient to suppose that there are impossible non-existent numbers. I have never been happy with the example of the round square--to me, all that I can think of in this case is "roundness," squareness" and the incompatibility of the two properties.