Nov 1, 2023·edited Nov 1, 2023Liked by Richard Y Chappell
I would have thought there would be some tension between (a) and (b), because it *doesn't* seem as though our minds literally overlap with the physical world. Rather, it appears as though our minds are separate from the world, but responsive to it. So there's a sense in which, if (b) is true, then the world is *not* as it appears. I'd have to read the whole paper, though! Sounds very interesting.
Yeah, there are respects in which the view isn't wholly intuitive (for one, it doesn't seem as thought the world is fundamentally phenomenal!). But Helen wants to distinguish "how things seem" in the sense of having the world *match our experience* of it (e.g. via the real existence of sensible qualities), vs "how things seem" in a more theoretical sense (our implicit theorizing about how to make sense of our experiences). She gives more weight to the former sort of seeming: she thinks we should be more than happy to rethink our implicit theories, by contrast.
More generally, if our intuitions aren't jointly satisfiable, some compromises will be necessary to secure a coherent overall view. So a moderate claim here is just that idealism can secure some especially neat features (the reality of sensible qualities, and our ability to directly grasp reality through perception) that other views miss.
I would have thought there would be some tension between (a) and (b), because it *doesn't* seem as though our minds literally overlap with the physical world. Rather, it appears as though our minds are separate from the world, but responsive to it. So there's a sense in which, if (b) is true, then the world is *not* as it appears. I'd have to read the whole paper, though! Sounds very interesting.
Yeah, there are respects in which the view isn't wholly intuitive (for one, it doesn't seem as thought the world is fundamentally phenomenal!). But Helen wants to distinguish "how things seem" in the sense of having the world *match our experience* of it (e.g. via the real existence of sensible qualities), vs "how things seem" in a more theoretical sense (our implicit theorizing about how to make sense of our experiences). She gives more weight to the former sort of seeming: she thinks we should be more than happy to rethink our implicit theories, by contrast.
More generally, if our intuitions aren't jointly satisfiable, some compromises will be necessary to secure a coherent overall view. So a moderate claim here is just that idealism can secure some especially neat features (the reality of sensible qualities, and our ability to directly grasp reality through perception) that other views miss.