Q&A: Empiricism, Rationalism, and the Psycho-Physical Problem
Empiricism, Rationalism, and the Psycho-Physical Problem
Question
Good evening!
1- What is the proof that the world really exists and is not merely a product of our consciousness (Berkeley)? Seemingly, there must necessarily be some factor besides us, since we did not create ourselves. But insofar as we assume that God exists, perhaps He is the factor projecting things into our consciousness—but how do we know there is a real world?
Can one say that there must necessarily be a world that is the object of the senses, because there cannot be an observer without something observed (that is, there cannot be sensory observation without a real world that produces it)? I would be glad for some elaboration on this.
2- In modern times they began discussing: who says that we know the world correctly, and perhaps the senses deceive us? What troubled them was that perhaps there is a mismatch between the intellect and the senses.
My question is that, seemingly, beyond this claim one can make a more fundamental claim: since there is a qualitative gap between body and soul/mind (the psycho-physical problem), perhaps it is impossible to grasp the material world through thought (that is, the soul/mind—reflective thought), since its essence is different. And likewise, one cannot receive everything from the senses (Locke), since there is a gap?
3- Why, in fact, did the discussion between Locke and Descartes regarding whether thought comes from outside or from within not address the psycho-physical gap?
4- Locke argues that concepts come from outside. But if so, it is difficult for me: how do we contain and interpret what comes, since there must be some receptacle?
Is the answer that there really is a receptacle, just as an animal can eat and absorb from outside? That is, according to Locke, is thought not qualitatively different from matter, but rather part of it, like hardware versus software? (And if so, then once again we return to the psycho-physical problem—that for Descartes thought is qualitatively different. But in any case, it is difficult that they did not notice that this is really the underlying issue.)
Thank you very much!
Answer
1. If I bring you a proof, it will rest on assumptions. Then you can ask what the proof for those assumptions is. The position that there is an external world is the result of using our means of observation (sensory and non-sensory). Someone who wants to cast doubt on the data of the senses can of course always do so, but there is no way to deal with skepticism, and in my view there is also no need or point in doing so. I am not a skeptic, and that is that.
By the way, the fact that someone had to create the world or us cannot serve as proof of anything. That very fact itself is part of our cognition, and perhaps it too describes only what takes place within us and not the world itself. For the same reason, your claim that there cannot be observation (not an observer, as you wrote) without something observed also cannot serve as proof. That claim too would be redirected inward, to our cognition. This is somewhat like the difficulty Zeitlin raised regarding Kant: why is the division between phenomena and noumena not itself entirely within our cognition (that is, within the phenomena)? I discussed this in columns 494–496 and in column 502.
2. Here you are smuggling Kant in through the back door. You are essentially arguing that our perceptions deal with phenomena, and there is nothing to compare them to in the noumena. Moreover, in the noumena there are no counterparts to our properties (there is no color or sound there, etc.). I discussed this in the above-mentioned columns.
3. I did not understand the question.
4. I did not understand.