| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 6562 | Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: For Plato, the intelligible world - the world of eternal and unchanging forms - is Parmenidean; the world of appearances - the world of flux we inhabit - is Heraclitean. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Parmenides said reality is 'One'; Heraclitus said reality is 'flux'. This is a nice summary of Plato's view, and encapsulates two key influences on Plato, though the mathematical reality of Pythagoras should also be mentioned on the 'forms' side. |
| 12095 | Knowledge of potential is universal and indefinite; of the actual it is definite and of individuals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge is a double thing, being both potential and actual. It is universal and indefinite and it is the potentiality of something that is universal and indefinite. But actuality is definite and of something definite, being the this-such of a this-such. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1087a12) | |
| A reaction: Charlotte Witt identifies this as a key idea in 'Metaphysics', since the metaphysics is built on the epistemology, and this idea justifies the claim that Aristotle gives priority to particulars. I thoroughly approve. Not all knowledge is of the universal. |
| 6262 | We lack some sense or other, and hence objects may have hidden features [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: We may all lack some sense or other; because of that defect, most of the features of objects may be concealed from us. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0666) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as simple, straightforward common sense, and right. I cannot make sense of the claim that reality really is just the way it appears. We do not have a built-in neutrino detector, for example. |
| 12752 | Only unities have any reality [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is no reality in anything except the reality of unities. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to leave indeterminate stuff like air and water with no reality, as nicely discussed by Henry Laycock. Do we just force unities on the world because that is the only way our minds can cope with it? |
| 21926 | Schopenhauer, unlike other idealists, says reality is irrational [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer radically departs from his fellow idealists in his assertion of the irrational character of reality. | |
| From: report of Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: This is the rejection of the original confidence about rationality of the stoics. And yet Schopenauer saw the principle of sufficient reason as axiomatic. Not sure how to reconcile those. Lewis identifies this idea as 'Romantic'. |
| 10352 | The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]), quoted by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.16 | |
| A reaction: If this is anti-realism, then I don't like it. If it is realist, then it is probably a bit on the optimistic side (if you think about cultures that are into witchcraft and voodoo). |
| 22202 | The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: The World is the totality of objects that can be known through experience. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.001) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the 'Nature' which has to be 'bracketed', when pursuing Phenomenology. It sounds like anti-realist empiricism, which has no place for unobservables. |
| 5370 | Space is neutral between touch and sight, so it cannot really be either of them [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The space of science is neutral as between touch and sight; thus it cannot be either the space of touch or the space of sight. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: I find this persuasive, although it is hardly a knock-down argument. It is a very simple problem for anti-realists, that if you say reality IS sensations (à la Berkeley), then you have conflicting sensations of what seems to be one reality. |
| 22161 | Readiness-to-hand defines things in themselves ontologically [Heidegger] |
| Full Idea: Readiness-to-hand is the way in which entities as they are 'in themselves' are defined ontologico-categorially. | |
| From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.3.15) | |
| A reaction: I assume this is a direct reference to the problem idealists had with the thing-in-itself. It seems that the reality of a thing consists of the strengthened relationship it has with Dasein, which sounds fairly idealist to me. |
| 13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
| Full Idea: To be real in the scientific sense means to be an element of the system; hence this concept cannot be meaningfully applied to the system itself. | |
| From: Rudolph Carnap (Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology [1950], 2) |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: Reality in a world, like realism in a picture, is largely a matter of habit. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm a robust realist, me, but I sort of see what he means. We become steeped in unspoken conventions about how we take our world to be, and filter out anything that conflicts with it. |
| 8507 | Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers (like Devitt) think of reality as made up of things. Others, like me, think of it as made up of facts or states of affairs. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Against 'Ostrich Nominalism' [1980], §3) | |
| A reaction: Devitt is a follower of Quine on this. Personally I rather like 'processes'. Unanalysed things with predication (Quine) don't look promising. I currently favour things with active powers, which give rise to properties. See Shoemaker and Ellis. |
| 12598 | Reality is the overlap of true complete theories [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Reality is what is invariant among true complete theories. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.2.4) | |
| A reaction: The sort of slogan that gets coined in the age of Quine. The whole manner of starting from your theories and working out to what we think reality is seems to be putting the cart before the horse. |
| 2329 | Causal power is a good way of distinguishing the real from the unreal [Kim] |
| Full Idea: A plausible criterion for distinguishing what is real from what is not real is the possession of causal power. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §4 p.119) |
| 7974 | Without God we faced reality: what do we face without reality? [Baudrillard] |
| Full Idea: The eclipse of God left us up against reality. Where will the eclipse of reality leave us? | |
| From: Jean Baudrillard (The Intelligence of Evil [2004]) | |
| A reaction: Baudrillard's distinctive view is that modern culture is thwarting all our attempts to grasp reality, which itself becomes a fiction. The answer is that you are left in the position of the ancient sceptics. Sextus Empiricus (see) is the saviour. |
| 6082 | If causal power is the test for reality, that will exclude necessities and possibilities [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Whether my body weight is necessary or contingent makes no difference at all to my causal powers, so modality is epiphenomenal; if you took causal potential as a test of reality you would have to declare modes unreal. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: We could try analysing modality into causal terms, as Lewis proposes with quantification across worlds, or as Quine proposes by reduction to natural regularities. I am not sure what it would mean to declare that modes are 'real'. |
| 1605 | Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik] |
| Full Idea: There are two extremes: the Aristotelian views reality simply as reality, and the sophist or poet view reality only as an object of desire. | |
| From: David Roochnik (The Tragedy of Reason [1990], p.199) |
| 9211 | A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: By challenging the assumption that reality is 'absolute' (not relative to a standpoint), or that reality is 'coherent' (it is of a piece, from one standpoint), one accepts worldly facts without a privilege standpoint. I call this 'non-standard' realism. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.15) | |
| A reaction: Fine's essay 'Tense and Reality' explores his proposal. I'm not drawn to either of his challenges. I have always taken as articles of faith that there could be a God's Eye view of all of reality, and that everything coheres, independent of our view. |
| 15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: At the bottom are tensed or temporal facts, subject to the vicissitudes of time and hence of the world. Then come the timeless though worldly facts, subject to the world but not to time. Top are transcendental facts, subject to neither world nor time. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08) | |
| A reaction: For all of Fine's awesome grasp of logic and semantics, when he divides reality up as boldly as this I start to side a bit with the sceptics about modern metaphysics (like Ladyman and Ross). I daresay Fine acknowledges that it is 'speculative'. |
| 15046 | Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I conclude that there is a primitive metaphysical concept of reality, one that cannot be understood in fundamentally different terms. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fine offers arguments to support his claim, but it seems hard to disagree with. The only alternative I can see is to understand reality in terms of our experiences, and this is the road to metaphysical hell. |
| 15047 | What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Questions of what is real are to be settled upon the basis of considerations of ground. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This looks like being one of Fine's most important ideas, which is shifting the whole basis of contemporary metaphysics. Only Parmenides and Heidegger thought Being was the target. Aristotle aims at identity. What grounds what is a third alternative. |
| 15048 | In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The first main approach says metaphysical reality is to be identified with what is 'objective' or 'factual'. ...According to the second conception, metaphysical reality is to be identified with what is 'irreducible' or 'fundamental'. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Fine is defending the 'fundamental' approach, via the 'grounding' relation. The whole structure, though, seems to be reality. In particular, a complete story must include the relations which facilitate more than mere fundamentals. |
| 15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We may grant that some things are explanatorily more basic than others, but why should that make them more real? | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 8) | |
| A reaction: This is the question asked by the 'quietist'. Fine's answer is that our whole conception of Reality, with its intrinsic structure, is what lies at the basis, and this is primitive. |
| 21660 | Reality can be seen as the totality of facts, or as the totality of things [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Reality can be seen as everything that is the case - the totality of all facts that obtain - or reality can be seen as everything there is - the totality of all things that exist. | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 10) | |
| A reaction: Things are a lot easier to specify than facts, but on the whole I prefer facts, just in order to affirm that there is more to reality than the mere 'things' that compose it. Our ontology must capture the dynamic and relational character of reality. |