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Is there an external world? | Jan Westerhoff
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okay so it's going to be two to two
parts and they're to two different
lectures so in the first part I'm
primarily talking about arguments for
the non existence of the external world
and then after the break in the second
part we are going to look at the whole
thing in a bit more abstract manner
asking whether there can be any
ultimately true theories of reality at
all and just as the spoiler alert the
answer to both is going to be no okay so
if you don't want to know the arguments
you can leave now all right because you
know what though it's all going to end
so okay so let's let's get started so
when we are talking about denying the
existence of the external world
I should probably first of all tell you
roughly what at what I mean by that so I
don't mean a kind of Barclays and
idealism which that says all things are
ornamental so there really no physical
objects and it's only the case that we
mistake mental objects for physical
objects right so that's that's not that
what I mean by denial of an of an
external world so I'm interested in the
more general denial of objects that
exist independently of human interest
sense concerns whether such objects are
tables or chairs or in Buckley's case
that divine ideas right so for somebody
like Berkeley there would be an external
world it's just an external what is
mental yeah and for for therefore your
standard to sentient materialist there's
an external what the external world is
material yeah but what I'm interested in
is actually a theory that tries to
undercut the fundamental assumption that
there is some stuff that exists
independently of us independently of our
interests and concerns whether that
stuff is mental or physical now the the
question that I get often asked in this
context when I when I when I talk about
this idea is whether my position is a
kind of ontological agnosticism or is it
ontological atheism right so let me just
explain what I mean by that and so on
geological agnosticism would just be the
would just be the idea that we can't
have secure knowledge of whether or not
there is actually something out there
right so we just have to if once we've
looked at all the argument we just have
to suspend judgment and we have to say
well we don't know and in the same way
in which a theological agnosticism
really know whether God exists or not I
mean there's some good arguments for the
existence of God and there's some good
arguments for atheism but nothing is
really decisive so we can just say well
I don't know now so if to suspend our
judgment yeah and then of course there
is the the the ontological atheist who's
going to present and a stronger position
who is going to say no we can actually
haven't have an argument for what the
claim that there are no such things
right there are no external objects in
the same way in which the Atheist is
going to say there's no God right we can
prove that there is no God we don't have
to suspend judgments right I in the in
this talk I set out to argue for the
stronger for this ontological atheist
position saying that we can have good
reasons to deny that they're any objects
independent of human interests and
concern right and if I understand Don
Hoffman's position correctly which I'm
not entirely sure but I think his he is
more in the former camp that says well
in the end we don't really know what
kind of things there are there and we
really have to you know we'll have to we
have to see as far as we come with
scientific methodology but then we have
we basically have to stop before
answering the final question and then
that's have to suspend judgment yeah so
that would be I mean I don't want it
attribute that view to him that that's
that's how I understand him so this is
kind of weaker position than the one I
want to want want to talk about today so
and we'll see how far we get with that
so in a sort of not sure my main reason
for this stronger ontologically atheist
claim is that such entities that such
external entities that exist independent
of human interests and concerns wouldn't
do any explanatory or theoretical work
and when we are faced with the choice of
whether or not to accept such entities
its methodologically preferable not to
do so right so if you have a theory and
then you realize that you serve one one
wheel in the mechanism doesn't actually
do anything apart from turning you think
Oh construct construct mean time
mechanism without that wheel yeah and so
that idle wheel I would argue is also
the Explorer the assumption that they
are things that exist independent of
human interests and concerns right so
that's the that's the kind of goal the
theoretical goal I'm going for but
before we get to that and of course
we'll have to see why that would indeed
be the case we have to argue that the
postulation of objects independent of
human interests and concerns is indeed
dispensable and that is a pretty big
task and I'll spend most of this talk
actually in trying to make this claim
plausible yeah ok so and I'm going to
look mainly at two arguments against the
existence of an external world and these
two arguments are the other ones that
you see here on the slide one is that
key features of our word view that seem
to necessitate the external world do not
in fact do so alright so we might think
there are certain assumptions that we
make about our everyday reality that
necessitated their external objects but
in fact that is a mistaken idea no and
the second point the be point is that
the defensible epistemology sorry
defensible epistemology is can only
postulate an external what in a very
thin sense yeah so if we think about our
best theories of knowledge our best
epistemologies then we realize that the
external world they they have to
postulate is an extremely thin and
insubstantial notion which we can't
really use in order to make it bear the
weight of the objects that exist fully
independent of human interests and
concerns so and as a conclusion of those
two we're then aiming for the claim that
therefore the assumption of an external
world is dispensable no so we'll see how
certain properties of the world that
seemed to be only explicable by assuming
the existence of mind independent
objects can in fact be explained without
them that's point a and secondly we will
see that the most promising theories of
knowledge philosophers currently defend
assume the existence of such objects but
that they do so in such a minimal sense
we can in fact get by without them okay
so let's talk about a first yeah and so
the main question is why do we think we
need to postulate the existence of an
external world and there at least two
intuitive reasons why you could think we
need that first of all to explain the
appearance of externality right so there
appears to be all that stuff around me
that is pretty independent of my
interest and concern so if I wasn't here
I think this tent probably would still
be here that's the first point and the
second point is that we use it to
explain the difference between vertical
and illusory States yeah so in
particular we are using the idea of
objects that exists independent of human
interest and concerns in order to
explain why the external world around us
seems to be coherent right so it seems
to be a non contradictory story where
everything hangs together also we want
to explain why there is such a thing as
intersubjective agreement right so I can
see this watch here and you can all see
this watch which is would be difficult
to explain if there wasn't a watch and
finally of course the notion of efficacy
right we can thinks in the external
world seem to have some sort of causal
and external causal and external
efficacy how do we explain that if these
things don't exist right okay and so
let's let's have a look at how strong
these two reasons for defending the
existence of external things really are
well I think we can deal with this point
here that we need an external world to
explain the appearance of externality we
can deal with that fairly quickly
because that it's a very strong point as
there are all kinds of epistemic
situations where we have the experience
of objects independent of human
interests and concerns while there are
in fact no such objects right dreaming
is probably the most obvious examples
hallucinations and specific kinds of
virtual reality there were contexts
where we actually have the impression
that there are things independent of our
of us our desires concerns our cognitive
states they say the the reality we
interact with in a dream but of course
there's no such things nobody assumes
that you know when you are chased by
tiger in a dream that is really some
kind of ontological entity which is the
dream Tiger such that your dream is
about that but it's just nothing it's
only the process happening in your mind
okay so I think this one is that the
second point is a lot more interesting
and that is that an important feature of
the world seems to be a distinction
between states that are political like
waking life and illusionary States like
dreams or perceptual illusions like you
know bent sticks and neurologists and
tinnitus where you hear a sound in your
ear that isn't there and so on so
recourse to mind independent objects
allows us to explain this by supporting
the claim that veridical states are
coherent in themselves and with one another
another
different people agree on them and they
produce substantial effects right so if
there were no objects of independent of
human interest and concerns the whole
veridical illusory distinction would
collapse right but this seems to be a
pretty stable distinction about how we
think about the world so the the
opponent argues such objects must exist
because if there was if there were no
external objects then we wouldn't make
sense we couldn't make sense of these
very strong intuitions we have about the
world around us
coherence into subjective agreement and
efficacy to continue watching this video
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