Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum / Reasons to assume idealism over realism?

**Posted by RomanJoe** 7/13/2018 12:56 pm

I'm having issues trying to organize my thoughts around the epistemic groundwork for metaphysics. I am specifically interested in the competing views of the human mind as something that structures reality and the human mind as something which comprehends reality. The traditional realist will subscribe to the latter, confident that we do comprehend the quiddity of a thing, its form in the abstract, its essence--and they will say that this isn't merely the imposition of structuring concepts onto an indifferent noumenal world, rather it's the recognition of the world as it is. In other words the world and the mind are correlated. This is the common sense view, and our intuitions seem to affirm it.

Now the skeptic will see the human mind as a barrier to reality as it is in itself. On this view we can never really come to know the quiddity of a thing--or even if we happened to we may never know.

I'm wondering what the motivation is for accepting the skeptical view over the common sense view?

**Posted by John West** 7/13/2018 1:49 pm

RomanJoe wrote:
I'm wondering what the motivation is for accepting the skeptical view over the common sense view?

I'm in the middle of writing a series of posts on skepticism. I have to prioritize the philosophy I do during “the day”, the thesis research, over the philosophy I do in my leisure time for the blog and so there will be pauses between articles. But you will be able to find a lot of the skeptical arguments laid out in those posts.

I've only written two so far, and the first is really just an elongated notice about the series.

**Posted by John West** 7/13/2018 1:51 pm

But as far as this post goes, you might start by looking into the distinction between idealism and skepticism, and the distinctions between the different kinds of idealism, to get a better sense (or so that you'll be able to help us get a better sense, anyway) of what you're asking. It looks like you might be asking: “Why accept Kant's transcendental idealism over Thomism?”

**Posted by RomanJoe** 7/13/2018 2:00 pm

John West wrote:
RomanJoe wrote:
I'm wondering what the motivation is for accepting the skeptical view over the common sense view?
I'm in the middle of writing a series of posts on skepticism. I have to prioritize the philosophy I do during “the day”, the thesis research, over the philosophy I do in my leisure time for the blog and so there will be pauses between articles. But you will be able to find a lot of the skeptical arguments laid out in those posts.

I've only written two so far, and the first is really just an elongated notice about the series.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

**Posted by RomanJoe** 7/13/2018 2:03 pm

John West wrote:
But as far as this post goes, you might start by looking into the distinction between idealism and skepticism, and the distinctions between the different kinds of idealism, to get a better sense (or so that you'll be able to help us get a better sense, anyway) of what you're asking. It looks like you might be asking: “Why accept Kant's transcendental idealism over Thomism?”

Yes exactly. Your quoted question seems to capture the essence of my inquiry.

**Posted by John West** 7/13/2018 2:07 pm

I see. I don't think you should accept either of them.

**Posted by RomanJoe** 7/13/2018 2:19 pm

John West wrote:
I see. I don't think you should accept either of them.

Alrighty! Enlighten me.

**Posted by John West** 7/13/2018 2:35 pm

In the space of a forum comment? Neither the sage of Königsberg nor the fat friar from Aquino is so easily refuted. You can find some arguments against the latter here, here, and here (II, III, IV), though.

**Posted by DanielCC** 7/13/2018 2:43 pm

RomanJoe wrote:
John West wrote:
But as far as this post goes, you might start by looking into the distinction between idealism and skepticism, and the distinctions between the different kinds of idealism, to get a better sense (or so that you'll be able to help us get a better sense, anyway) of what you're asking. It looks like you might be asking: “Why accept Kant's transcendental idealism over Thomism?”
Yes exactly. Your quoted question seems to capture the essence of my inquiry.

No disrespect but that seems the least interesting kind of idealism - why not look at the ontological implications of mind structuring reality - rather than there being some cognitively inaccessible real why shouldn't it be the case that reality isn't just the play of cogitans and cogitatum?

Last edited by DanielCC (7/13/2018 2:44 pm)

**Posted by John West** 8/16/2018 4:58 pm

RomanJoe wrote:
Thanks, I'll take a look.

There is a (brief) post about some of those arguments here. Historically, they also provided some of the impetus for some philosophers' indirect realism and idealism.