The Problem of the External World

1988 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
D. W. Hamlyn ◽  
J. E. Tiles
Keyword(s):  

Heidegger says concerning the question of the possibility of a proof of the existence of an external world that ‘the “scandal of philosophy” (Kant's words) is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again’. Heidegger thinks this because our being (Dasein) is in the world, and this is something which Descartes for one failed to appreciate. I am not concerned here to answer the question whether Heidegger's own views on these matters will do, though I think that they will not. Indeed they might well be said to beg the question at issue, in that Heidegger starts from the presumption that we are actually in the world, even if we are not in it in the way in which the tree in the garden is (and does not this last point make a great difference to the situation?). Another way of reacting to Heidegger would be to say that he does not treat the fact and force of scepticism seriously enough when he makes that presumption. After all, it is possible for us to raise sceptical doubts about the existence of a world apart from ourselves, while it is not possible for the tree in the garden to act similarly. Hence, even if we make the presumption that we are in the world, as Heidegger insists, we are in it in a way that leaves untouched the possibility of sceptical doubts about what that world and our being in it are like. It might, logically, be the case, for example, that the world consists of just me and that my being in the world is no more than for me just to exist. In other words, my being in the world does not directly entail that there exists a world apart from me.

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Sutanto

AbstractNicholas Wolterstorff argues that Kant had erected an epistemological boundary between mental representations and external reality that precipitates an anxiety in modern theologians about whether one can properly refer to God. As a way past this boundary, Wolterstorff's Reformed epistemology retrieves Thomas Reid's account of perception as an alternative to Kant, according to which knowledge of external objects is direct and immediate. Further, Wolterstorff points to the Dutch neo-Calvinist Herman Bavinck as one who bears many “reidian” elements in his epistemology, especially in the way in which Bavinck argues that the epistemic accessibility of the external world ought to be taken for granted. The thesis of this present paper, however, is that a closer investigation of Bavinck's account of perception reveals that he, unlike Reid, accepts the gap between mental representations and external objects, such that representations are those through which we know the world. Bavinck affirms that a correspondence between the two can be obtained by an appeal to the resources found in Christian revelation. In effect, what emerges in a close comparison of Bavinck and Reid is that Bavinck's account is an alternative theological response to the kantian boundary—one according to which mental representations correspond with external objects because both participate in an organically connected cosmos shaped by a Triune God.


2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-168
Author(s):  
Sylvia Mara Pires de FREITAS

This article, primarily and in a brief, contextualizing the Industrial Psychology, Organizational Psychology and Psychology of Work, through its historical constructions and grounds of their philosophical hegemonic theories, which underpin the knowledge and the practices of psychologist in the work. As a central focus, has a further reading for this sub-area of psychology, through phenomenology and existentialism of Sartre, thus enabling the expansion of the practice of psychology in the relations in the work, surrounded by capitalist praxis. Finally, raising issues and considerations on the experience of the psychologist's work, when, to help the worker to transcend the tensions between its internal and external world, as well as employee has their values marked its own tensions in that context. Then focuses on the need for psychologists to be aware of their limitations and prejudices with everyday phenomena, which can block changes in the way in which live the world of work.


Author(s):  
Maureen Christie ◽  
John R. Christie

Most philosophers’ discussions of issues relating to “laws of nature” and “scientific theories” have concentrated heavily on examples from classical physics. Newton’s laws of motion and of gravitation and the various conservation laws are often discussed. This area of science provides very clear examples of the type of universal generalization that constitutes the widely accepted view of what a law of nature or a scientific theory “ought to be.” But classical physics is just one very small branch of science. Many other areas of science do not seem to throw up generalizations of nearly the same breadth or clarity. The question of whether there are any laws of nature in biology, or of why there are not, has often been raised (e.g., Ghiselin, 1989; Ruse, 1989). In the grand scheme of science, chemistry stands next to physics in any supposed reductive hierarchy, and chemistry does produce many alleged laws of nature and scientific theories. An examination of the characters of these laws and theories, and a comparison with those that arise in classical physics, might provide a broader and more balanced view of the nature of laws and theories and of their role in science. From the outset, we should very carefully define the terms of our discourse. The notion of laws of nature has medieval origin as the edicts of an all-powerful deity to his angelic servants about how the functioning of the world should be arranged and directed. It may be helpful to distinguish three quite different senses in which laws of nature are considered in modern discussions. On occasion, the discussion has become sidetracked and obscure because of conflation and confusion of two or more of these senses. In the first, or ontological, sense, laws of nature may be considered as a simply expressed generalization about the way an external world does operate. Laws of nature are often seen as principles of the way the world works. They are an objective part of the external world, waiting to be discovered. The laws that we have and use may be only approximations of the deeper, true laws of nature.


1988 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
D. W. Hamlyn
Keyword(s):  

Heidegger says concerning the question of the possibility of a proof of the existence of an external world that ‘the “scandal of philosophy” (Kant's words) is not that this proof has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again’. Heidegger thinks this because our being (Dasein) is in the world, and this is something which Descartes for one failed to appreciate. I am not concerned here to answer the question whether Heidegger's own views on these matters will do, though I think that they will not. Indeed they might well be said to beg the question at issue, in that Heidegger starts from the presumption that we are actually in the world, even if we are not in it in the way in which the tree in the garden is (and does not this last point make a great difference to the situation?). Another way of reacting to Heidegger would be to say that he does not treat the fact and force of scepticism seriously enough when he makes that presumption. After all, it is possible for us to raise sceptical doubts about the existence of a world apart from ourselves, while it is not possible for the tree in the garden to act similarly. Hence, even if we make the presumption that we are in the world, as Heidegger insists, we are in it in a way that leaves untouched the possibility of sceptical doubts about what that world and our being in it are like. It might, logically, be the case, for example, that the world consists of just me and that my being in the world is no more than for me just to exist. In other words, my being in the world does not directly entail that there exists a world apart from me.


2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios Barkas ◽  
Xenia Chryssochoou

Abstract. This research took place just after the end of the protests following the killing of a 16-year-old boy by a policeman in Greece in December 2008. Participants (N = 224) were 16-year-olds in different schools in Attiki. Informed by the Politicized Collective Identity Model ( Simon & Klandermans, 2001 ), a questionnaire measuring grievances, adversarial attributions, emotions, vulnerability, identifications with students and activists, and questions about justice and Greek society in the future, as well as about youngsters’ participation in different actions, was completed. Four profiles of the participants emerged from a cluster analysis using representations of the conflict, emotions, and identifications with activists and students. These profiles differed on beliefs about the future of Greece, participants’ economic vulnerability, and forms of participation. Importantly, the clusters corresponded to students from schools of different socioeconomic areas. The results indicate that the way young people interpret the events and the context, their levels of identification, and the way they represent society are important factors of their political socialization that impacts on their forms of participation. Political socialization seems to be related to youngsters’ position in society which probably constitutes an important anchoring point of their interpretation of the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-443
Author(s):  
Paul Mazey

This article considers how pre-existing music has been employed in British cinema, paying particular attention to the diegetic/nondiegetic boundary and notions of restraint. It explores the significance of the distinction between diegetic music, which exists in the world of the narrative, and nondiegetic music, which does not. It analyses the use of pre-existing operatic music in two British films of the same era and genre: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), and demonstrates how seemingly subtle variations in the way music is used in these films produce markedly different effects. Specifically, it investigates the meaning of the music in its original context and finds that only when this bears a narrative relevance to the film does it cross from the diegetic to the nondiegetic plane. This reveals that whereas music restricted to the diegetic plane may express the outward projection of the characters' emotions, music also heard on the nondiegetic track may reveal a deeper truth about their feelings. In this way, the meaning of the music varies depending upon how it is used. While these two films may differ in whether or not their pre-existing music occupies a nondiegetic or diegetic position in relation to the narrative, both are characteristic of this era of British film-making in using music in an understated manner which expresses a sense of emotional restraint and which marks the films with a particularly British inflection.


The Eye ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (128) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Gregory DeNaeyer

The world-wide use of scleral contact lenses has dramatically increased over the past 10 year and has changed the way that we manage patients with corneal irregularity. Successfully fitting them can be challenging especially for eyes that have significant asymmetries of the cornea or sclera. The future of scleral lens fitting is utilizing corneo-scleral topography to accurately measure the anterior ocular surface and then using software to design lenses that identically match the scleral surface and evenly vault the cornea. This process allows the practitioner to efficiently fit a customized scleral lens that successfully provides the patient with comfortable wear and improved vision.


Author(s):  
Adrián Bertorello

RESUMENEl trabajo examina críticamente la afirmación central de la hermenéutica de Paul Ricoeur, a saber, que el soporte material de la escritura es el rasgo determinante para que una secuencia discursiva sea considerada como un texto. La escritura cancela las condiciones fácticas de la enunciación y crea, de este modo, un ámbito de sentido estable en el que se puede validar una concepción de la subjetividad que está implicada en las dos estrategias de lecturas (el análisis estructural y la apropiación), esto es, un sujeto pasivo que se constituye por la idealidad del significado. Asimismo, el trabajo intentará precisar una serie de ambigüedades en el uso que Ricoeur hace del «ser en el mundo» para sostener la referencialidad del discurso.PALABRAS CLAVETEXTO, ESCRITURA, REFERENCIA, SUBJETIVIDAD, MUNDOABSTRACTThis paper critically examines the main assertion of Paul Ricoeur´s hermeneutics, i.e., that the material base of writing is the determining feature to consider a discursive sequence as a text. Writing cancels the factual conditions of enunciation and creates, in this way, a background of stable meaning where it is possible to validate a conception of subjectivity implicated in the two reading strategies (the structural analysis and the appropriation), i.e., a passive subject constituted by the ideality of meaning. Likewise, this paper aims to clarify some ambiguities in the way Ricoeur uses the «beings in the world» to support the discourse referentiality.KEY WORDSTEXT, WRITING, REFERENCE, SUBJECTIVITY, WORLD


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.


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