JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Bluemist
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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The fundamental problem with reality is that it is not unique and distinct, as would be required by the logic of the law of non-contradiction.

If the world-in-itself is designated as reality, then it is indeterminate, infinitely continuous, ever-changing, and indescribable.

If reality is what is sensible or what is sensed, or what is perceived, then it is still indeterminate, ever-changing, and subject to the relativist three necessary restrictions of the law of non-contradiction, namely aspect or side presented, angle of view, and time. Judged perceptions are discrete but many, therefore mostly conceivable, even nameable, and possibly subject to the law of non-contradiction.
~~ This is more-or-less Plato's view of sense perception.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul:
[W]e have to do with reality when something presents itself as it actually and authentically is, be it a real truth or a real fact. In consequence, the fundamental distinction is not between the appearances available in our experience and that which is inaccessibly external to it, but rather between that which is correct within our experience and that which is somehow incorrect or misleading. lt would thus be wrongheaded to think of reality as a distinct sort of being different from 'the phenomenal realm' of what people take to be so. The crux is not the contrast between what is and what is thought to be, but rather between what is thought correctly and what is thought incorrectly and imperfectly.
It is a little, just a little, off putting that you argue through quotations, and you make me argue against professional philosophers; but on the other hand, so what.
Incorrect or misleading?? This puts the matter in the hands of standards of what is correct. But what is this standard? And regarding "the distinct sort of being different from 'the phenomenal realm' of what people take to be so" would you not agree that what people take to be so is not at the level of philosophical understanding? Now, does this mean that what people think, the everydayness of thinking, the logic that is implicit in crossing the street? and betting on the horses, is the same kind of thinking, structurally, that applies to questioning things at the level of basic questions? Or does it mean that the person-on-the-street is thematically capable of discerning philosophical nuance? Heidegger draws a distinction between ontic and ontological thinking. The latter is what emerges when one takes up what we all do in terms of its foundational features. This is ontology, the taking our world and putting in play a second order of inquiry.

Correctly and incorrectly?? Are you offering this as an assumption? But what is the standard for making such a distinction? Don't tell me to read the book. tell me.
the condition of things that people purport when they avoid making mistakes and achieve the adaequatio ad rem that the medievals saw as the hallmark of truth. Properly conceived, reality is by its very nature accessible to inquiry, albeit to an inquiry which in practice will often get matters wrong
Wherein lies the mistake? That is, what is the nature of a mistake? Is it just the pull from belief to doubt (see Peirce). Of course, the notion invites us to consider things that are trivially true and use them as models. It is trivially true that the sun is about 92.96 million miles from the earth, but are we not permitted to ask as to the nature of the constituents of this proposition? What is the earth, what are miles, what is measurement--or better, before we say what the earth is, should we not first understand the conditions of perception; after all, if it were a telescope, we would certainly want to know if the lens is adjusted right and there are no distortions, and so forth. Is perception a "mirror" to reality (See Rorty)? How does this work? (See Rorty yet again. Then read the ground work of pragmatism: Dewey, James and so forth).
But of course they need not be so. As the proverb says, appearances can be deceiving. Our clock loses five minutes a day. Nevertheless on two occasions of the day it will be right on time. But if this circumstance somehow blinds us to this clock's flaws, we will be much deceived. In distinguishing reality from mere appearance, what is fundamentally at issue is thus not an ontological distinction of different realms of being or thing-kinds, but an epistemological distinction between a correct and an incorrect view of things. Properly understood, the operative contrast is thus not that between reality and the phenomenon but between reality (veridical and authentic phenomena included) and what is misleading or incorrect. For reality can make its appearance in different guises—sometimes correctly and sometimes not. Appearance is not something different in kind and nature from reality, it is how reality presents itself. And reality is not by nature something different from appearance: it sometimes—and one would hope often—actually is what it appears to be."
I will grant that the question about ontological dualism is creates more problems than it solves. It is best to dismiss the "different kinds of reality" issue in favor of a, say, basic presentation of what is there and how to account for it at the level of basic questions. This is, of course, Heidegger's point. But the object as an object issue can be addressed phenomenologically: it is not the case that there is an object, a lamp, e.g., that has a independent presence AS a lamp, but that in the beholding, we are aware of alternatives of what it is. Its presence is contingent, that is, it depends on context to be understood as a lamp. There needs to be a meaning making perceiving agent that confers "lampness" onto the thing to make it a lamp. But what does this mean? It means that the truth of there being a lamp on the table is tied to language, context. Language is the house of Being, say Heidegger. Language takes up a thing and contextualizes it, thereby, to use his words, places the thing in an equiprimordial actuality. this means that the thing before youis, to make it a lamp at all, bound to ideas, a gathering of ideas that become proximal to one's egoic center as the occasion presents itself. And this happens in time, of course.
A LOT of this passage begs serious questions. It is not as if the author does not address them, but arguing by quotation does not unbeg questions.

Of course, I could go on and on. It is the question begging that does in this response. It sounds like a simple putting aside of problem causing attitudes, but really, it is just dismissive.
Regrettably, the contrast between appearance and reality is often identified—and thereby confused—with that between reality on the one side and mistaken or misleading appearance on the other. And this conflation will, effectively by definition, erect a Chinese Wall between reality and appearance. And this, rather paranoid, view of the matter must be put aside from the outset. To reemphasize: the philosophically significant contrast is not that between the real and the apparent as such, but rather that between the real and the merely apparent."
(p. 12)
Heidegger would qualitfiedly agree. It is just that, the Real, which the author puts forth so blithely as opposed to the "merely apparent": what IS this? That is to say, what is the accounting for it? Where is philosophical place for it? Or is it just an assumption that dismisses the Real as a theme for philosophy at all? But this would be like dismissing the notion of goods and value in a discussion of economics. even thos who are sick of philosphical debate as a go no where affair, like Rorty, have a theory of the Real, the actual, and so on. So does Heidegger.

..........................
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Nicholas Rescher wrote:Reality is not a distinct realm of being standing apart and separate from the manifold of what we know in the realm of appearance. Those 'appearances' will—insofar as correct—be appearances of reality that represent features thereof. And, accordingly, the contrast between Reality and Appearance is not one carried out in the ontological order of different sorts of things. The realm of appearance is homogeneous with that of reality insofar as those appearances are correct.
Rescher talks of reality as if it were totally obvious. Whatever appears to be real is real. If I see a table and I put my hand on that table, then the table is a real appearance. What else could it be? If I grabbed the table with my hands then I can be quite certain that the table is material, a corporeal object just as my hand is.

I could go along with Rescher, since his of philosophy corresponds to my naïve intuitions that I am corporially real and so are the objects of my experience. Or perhaps on deeper philosophical reflection I might at the very least question the supposition of the given and examine what is meant by material designation. Is what is material unshakeably real, or is it a natural hypothesis, an axiomatic supposition, or even just a useful fiction.

Historically, the Presocratics uniformly rejected naïve belief in experienced reality. After all, why would there be any need for philosophy if the world was exactly the way we suppose it to be? Some argued underlying substances, or elements, or atoms which could either be corporeal or more flexibly non-corporeal.

Likewise, the entire premise of any science is that the scientific world is something different than what we imagine our world to be. There are a multitude of scientific worlds, quite unintuitive until instrumentally observed and measured at different scales. As the Pythagoreans said, scientific worlds can only be known through mathematics.

Instead of choosing a reality, or uncritically falling into the one and only reality, can't I with due respect just temporarily assume one or another of the foundational axioms presented or discovered, and have access to many realities?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Consul »

Bluemist wrote: July 18th, 2019, 9:50 pmRescher talks of reality as if it were totally obvious. Whatever appears to be real is real. If I see a table and I put my hand on that table, then the table is a real appearance. What else could it be? If I grabbed the table with my hands then I can be quite certain that the table is material, a corporeal object just as my hand is.
Of course, an unreal table cannot appear to you perceptually; but in the case of a visual hallucination you can experience a real sensation which you falsely believe to be an appearance of a real table, but which is in fact an appearance of nothing, because there is no table to be seen.

Note that "appearance" (or "phenomenon") is ambiguous between "something appearing"/"appearing thing" and "appearing of something"/"appearing of a thing". An appearing of something or the appearing of a thing is always a subjective sensation or sense-impression. That is, it's a mental/experiential event in the subject.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Bluemist »

Consul wrote: July 18th, 2019, 11:42 pm Note that "appearance" (or "phenomenon") is ambiguous between "something appearing"/"appearing thing" and "appearing of something"/"appearing of a thing". An appearing of something or the appearing of a thing is always a subjective sensation or sense-impression. That is, it's a mental/experiential event in the subject.
Perhaps JTB can be conceived as a tripod where each leg is independent of the other two legs yet all three are necessary.

Belief is a personal psychological state, justification must be public, and truth is a posited correspondence to some public standard.

'I know that x' is different from 'it is known that x'. Recognition of this difference might avoid possible circularity of my knowing this x and knowing a general truth about x's to begin with?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Consul and Peter Holmes: Consider this from the internet. It is about Husserl (and then Heidegger, and then....), but it would not be possible to take it seriously if the standard "realist" assumptions about the world were not challenged and undone by Kant:
The Phenomenological Reduction
There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment. The “knowing” we have in this experience stands in stark contrast to the “knowing” we have in our everyday lives, where we come to the world with theory and “knowledge” in hand, our minds already made up before we ever engage the world. However, in the experience of astonishment, our everyday “knowing,” when compared to the “knowing” that we experience in astonishment, is shown up as a pale epistemological imposter and is reduced to mere opinion by comparison.

The phenomenological reduction is at once a description and prescription of a technique that allows one to voluntarily sustain the awakening force of astonishment so that conceptual cognition can be carried throughout intentional analysis, thus bringing the “knowing” of astonishment into our everyday experience. It is by virtue of the “knowing” perspective generated by the proper performance of the phenomenological reduction that phenomenology claims to offer such a radical standpoint on the world phenomenon; indeed, it claims to offer a perspective that is so radical, it becomes the standard of rigor whereby every other perspective is judged and by which they are grounded. In what follows there will be close attention paid to correctly understanding the rigorous nature of the phenomenological reduction, the epistemological problem that spawned it, how that problem is solved by the phenomenological reduction, and the truly radical nature of the technique itself.

In other words, the phenomenological reduction is properly understood as a regimen designed to transform a philosopher into a phenomenologist by virtue of the attainment of a certain perspective on the world phenomenon. The path to the attainment of this perspective is a species of meditation, requiring rigorous, persistent effort and is no mere mental exercise. It is a species of meditation because, unlike ordinary meditation, which involves only the mind, this more radical form requires the participation of the entire individual and initially brings about a radical transformation of the individual performing it similar to a religious conversion. Husserl discovered the need for such a regimen once it became clear to him that the foundation upon which scientific inquiry rested was compromised by the very framework of science itself and the psychological assumptions of the scientist; the phenomenological reduction is the technique whereby the phenomenologist puts him or herself in a position to provide adequately rigorous grounds for scientific or any other kind of inquiry.


It is THIS kind of thing that can lead o startling discovery about the world, for it is not just an argument (though it is this, no doubt); it is a qualitative change in the inquirer. One must seek this out, or one will forever bound to the trivialities what Heidegger called the they, the everydayness of affairs. Even the most brilliant philosopher can be held within its grasp if her gaze is forever caught exclusively in the abstraction of thought. Thought must be liberating, which is why Heidegger said things like "questioning is the piety of thought". Language can, contrary to Wittgenstein, lead the fly out of the fly bottle.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Hereandnow wrote: July 19th, 2019, 2:08 pm There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment.
I look at a man walking on a road. As a philosopher I want to understand what it means. I want to see all this, myself watching the man walking on the road, to represent the ontology of our existence, our being in the world. I do the phenomenological reduction: I stop and disconnect myself from the situation, take a neutral attitude. I put into “brackets” the actual existence of the man, the road, and also myself actually watching him. And a miracle happens: I start to see the essence of the situation. Something universal discloses itself in this particular event. Husserl called it “Wesenschau”. He started to develop it as a rigorous philosophical method, the phenomenological method.

Heidegger used this method, and so did Sartre. When we look at their philosophies, they seem to be quite different, so we must conclude that the method is perhaps not as unambiguous as Husserl thought. Or then there are many essential perspectives to the same reality. Anyway, I think the basic idea is correct: philosophy must start from what appears to us immediately and try to see the essence of what appears, how it appears and to whom it appears if there is anything like “who” at all.

In this way we see that the road and the man's moving body are real material objects in the world that is transcendent so that we can only see a perspective of it, and there are an infinite number of perspectives to it. But we see the real word, not representations of “things in themselves” as Kant thought.

But we can also see the representations when we reflect on our perceptions. This is our phenomenal world, or consciousness. And finally, we can see the subject, something that remains the same as we experience the changing world through all the various representations. The subject is the subject of consciousness of the world, and completes the triadic ontological structure. The subject remains the same as subjective time goes on from present to present.

Then we can see that some objects in the world are special in that they are same kind of subjects as we are: they are Others. And this fact has many paradoxical consequences, such as the question of how there can be foreign experiences. Another paradox is death. And another is suffering. And so on. All of them present their own peculiar essential characteristics disclosed in phenomenological intuition.

I just wanted to show how many crucial philosophical problems arise from seeing our original ontological situation with the aid of the phenomenological reduction, seeing some basic essences of our being in the world. Here philosophy begins.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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I've been following the discussion with interest. One observation is how far it has developed away from my OP, where I was trying to point out the radical difference and separation between the way things are and what we say about them. We forget it almost immediately, and delude ourselves into thinking that when we talk we're, as it were, handling things rather than words and other signs. It's the myth of propositions at work.

A contributor elsewhere remarked that propositions are the ghost stories of our times, which is an interesting way of putting it. So I thought I'd pick up and run with it.

The dualist myth of propositions - which are really nothing more than linguistic expressions - is pervasive. Along with the JTB account of knowledge, it informs correspondence theories of truth - the truth-maker / truth-bearer story. And, as part of the larger myth of abstract things, I think it has promoted the delusions of metaphysics, and the strange idea that logic deals with reality - that reality conforms to the rules of logic - when all that logic deals with is language - what can be said.

There's no foundation, for what we say, beneath our linguistic practices. Reality is not the set of all possible truth-makers.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Peter Holmes
I've been following the discussion with interest. One observation is how far it has developed away from my OP, where I was trying to point out the radical difference and separation between the way things are and what we say about them. We forget it almost immediately, and delude ourselves into thinking that when we talk we're, as it were, handling things rather than words and other signs. It's the myth of propositions at work.
The "things" you mention, which we re not handling: what are these?

A contributor elsewhere remarked that propositions are the ghost stories of our times, which is an interesting way of putting it. So I thought I'd pick up and run with it.
A ghost story implies that there are things that are not stories at all, against which the notion "story" plays out. That is, if propositions are stories, then what is not a story? Questions like this tend to challenge claims that language is somehow altogether apart what is real.
The dualist myth of propositions - which are really nothing more than linguistic expressions - is pervasive. Along with the JTB account of knowledge, it informs correspondence theories of truth - the truth-maker / truth-bearer story. And, as part of the larger myth of abstract things, I think it has promoted the delusions of metaphysics, and the strange idea that logic deals with reality - that reality conforms to the rules of logic - when all that logic deals with is language - what can be said.
The problem with bridging the space between S and P in the Gettier problems is that you never get beyond belief and justification to affirm P. The best way to approach this is not via severed heads and barn facsimiles (see the popular attempts to solve them), by redefining P as a composite object that comprises the belief justification itself.
There's no foundation, for what we say, beneath our linguistic practices. Reality is not the set of all possible truth-makers.
I wonder. As I noted in another post, reason is famously said to be such that if there is anything better, reason would discover it. This is because reason is in itself utterly vacant of content, and one cannot conceive of an experiential content such that the propositional "form," that is the form of reason and its propositional possibilities, cannot accommodate it. Tibetan Buddhists, I have read, talk often about mystical encounters, for example, and have a body of abstruse language references that succeed in conveying what these encounters are about. All that is required is shared understanding. Of course, intersubjective confirmation of content is not absolute. But then, does this matter?
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Hereandnow

Thanks for a refreshingly thoughtful and interesting response, which I want to address properly when I have more time.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Couple of typos I just noticed. "...attempts to solve them), by redefining P" should read "....BUT by redefining P..." And, ".... is somehow altogether apart what is real" should read "...apart FROM what is real."
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Peter Holmes »

Thanks. It's frustrating that we can't edit our own posts here - but I suppose there are arguments both ways.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

Post by Peter Holmes »

Hereandnow wrote: October 13th, 2019, 8:47 pm
Peter Holmes
I've been following the discussion with interest. One observation is how far it has developed away from my OP, where I was trying to point out the radical difference and separation between the way things are and what we say about them. We forget it almost immediately, and delude ourselves into thinking that when we talk we're, as it were, handling things rather than words and other signs. It's the myth of propositions at work.
The "things" you mention, which we re not handling: what are these?
I should have been clearer: ...when we talk we're, as it were, handling the things we're talking about, rather than words and other signs. (Words and other signs are real things, of course.)

A contributor elsewhere remarked that propositions are the ghost stories of our times, which is an interesting way of putting it. So I thought I'd pick up and run with it.
A ghost story implies that there are things that are not stories at all, against which the notion "story" plays out. That is, if propositions are stories, then what is not a story? Questions like this tend to challenge claims that language is somehow altogether apart what is real.
The point is that, like ghosts, abstract things such as propositions (logical forms of linguistic assertions) don't exist - an assumption about ghosts, of course. Linguistic factual assertions do exist - they're real things - just as is any symbolic expression of a proposition. Perhaps the 'ghost' reference was misleading - sorry.
The dualist myth of propositions - which are really nothing more than linguistic expressions - is pervasive. Along with the JTB account of knowledge, it informs correspondence theories of truth - the truth-maker / truth-bearer story. And, as part of the larger myth of abstract things, I think it has promoted the delusions of metaphysics, and the strange idea that logic deals with reality - that reality conforms to the rules of logic - when all that logic deals with is language - what can be said.
The problem with bridging the space between S and P in the Gettier problems is that you never get beyond belief and justification to affirm P. The best way to approach this is not via severed heads and barn facsimiles (see the popular attempts to solve them), by redefining P as a composite object that comprises the belief justification itself.
My approach is different. The problem with the JTB definition is its assumption that propositions have anything to do with our knowing that a feature of reality is the case - the whole idea of 'propositional knowledge'. In the truth-condition - S knows that p iff p is true - p has two completely different functions: first it represents a feature of reality, and second it represents a description of that feature of reality, which must be true if knowledge is to result.

S can justifiably believe or know a feature of reality is the case (can 'bridge the gap'), without language. And a factual assertion isn't a 'composite object'; it's purely and simply a linguistic expression. Whether it's true or not, and the justification for believing it's true, are separate matters which, again, need have nothing to do with other linguistic expressions.
There's no foundation, for what we say, beneath our linguistic practices. Reality is not the set of all possible truth-makers.
I wonder. As I noted in another post, reason is famously said to be such that if there is anything better, reason would discover it. This is because reason is in itself utterly vacant of content, and one cannot conceive of an experiential content such that the propositional "form," that is the form of reason and its propositional possibilities, cannot accommodate it. Tibetan Buddhists, I have read, talk often about mystical encounters, for example, and have a body of abstruse language references that succeed in conveying what these encounters are about. All that is required is shared understanding. Of course, intersubjective confirmation of content is not absolute. But then, does this matter?
Here you lose me. '...the propositional "form," that is the form of reason and its propositional possibilities...' ? What we call reason is another abstract fiction, as is propositional form. I think this is metaphysical non-sense. And talk of Tibetan Buddhists and mysticism confirms my suspicions, I'm afraid. But again, thanks for some stimulating thoughts.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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Peter Holmes

Here you lose me. '...the propositional "form," that is the form of reason and its propositional possibilities...' ? What we call reason is another abstract fiction, as is propositional form. I think this is metaphysical non-sense. And talk of Tibetan Buddhists and mysticism confirms my suspicions, I'm afraid. But again, thanks for some stimulating thoughts.
No. It is content you take issue with, not reason. If reason were to be removed from experience, you could not conceive of anything at all; you couldn't affirm something to be the case because to affirm is employ a category of reason. Just ask an infant child what it's like not to be able to reason. Is there conscious agency at all?

I abide by the thinking that says all awareness is inherently interpretative, and the "present" thing that sits before you is recognized and understood as a thing is not present at all for the ideas that rise to give identity are recollections, not presences. You could say that this is exactly your point, that the ideas occlude presence, and I would qualifiedly agree, but it wouldn't be reason that prevents you from acknowledging the presence of the thing, it would be conditioned thinking, the notorious das man of Heidegger, the quantitative sin of Kierkegaard, the naturalistic attitude of Husserl. This affair has a lot of history. I think we certainly are blinded by the everydayness of our culture and language, but reason as such? One cannot even imagine its absence.
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Re: JTB: the myth of propositions and the Gettier problem

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I should add, Peter Homes, that our positions amount to essentially the same thing. I said the Gettier problems could not ever confirm P, and S knows P reduces therefore to justification and belief. The object P is more IN S, or, S's contribution to P than P. There is a lot to say about this, but your position is that when we encounter an object and analyze the knowledge relationship, it is wrong to assign any propositional properties to it, for the object is itself absent of these. If you take the object to the Realist's object, some thing beyond the pale of perception, then yes, the object would be nearly without this. Such things are metaphysical ideas, by my thinking. No one has ever seen one. Now, if we take the object to be the phenomenon, then the matter changes altogether, for the thing there, before my eyes, is acknowledged as a thing, not as a kite or a desk, but under the heading of a concept: thing, before me, witnessed, duly classified, and so on.
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December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021