Definition of Reality

But my point is that if you admit from the get go that our ability to understand reality is fallible,n

Thanks! I like the detailed word history. To me, that's key.

This is the original post for this thread. I did take the time to go through all 136 postings to the thread What is "matter" in the quantum age? It reminded me of a paper I wrote years ago in a course on the philosophy of science entitled "Is the Concept of Matter Obsolete?" My conclusion at that time was "Yes," based on many of the points made in that thread. What I noticed about the discussion in that thread was that much of it focused on so-called "physical reality," as if that was all there was to reality.

Now the first part of housby's question is How do we know the reality of anything? which I will rephrase slightly as How do we know the reality of any thing? Therefore, to answer that question we must first understand what is meant by a "thing"? Our common conception of a "thing" is that of a so-called "physical object," such as a chair. But what is it about a chair that makes it a "thing"?

Ortega spent many years analyzing the concept of "thing." Of course it has a history going back to the Romans and the Greeks. The Latin word for "thing" is res, from which the words "real" and "reality" is derived and for which the philosophy known as Realism was named. So that to a Roman the expression "real thing" would be redundant.

Now the Romans used the word res as a translation of the Greek word pragma (plural pragmata), that the Greek philosophers used also to mean "thing." However, Ortega traced the original use of the word pragma in Greece, before the philosophers adopted it, as having the meaning "concern" or, ironically, "matter," in the sense that we speak of what "matters" or is of "concern" to us as living human beings.

So what Ortega concludes is that what we should mean by "thing" is that which "matters" or "concerns" us in our lives. It is the "things" that are important in the lives of human beings that have been given names and isolated from the rest of the circumstances in which they occurred. Ortega would say that "things" exist to the extent that they "matter" or are of "concern' to a human being in her life.

It was the Greek philosophers, however, who raised the question about where those "things," and in particular physical things, came from, what was there "origin." The Greek word for "origin" was physis, that originally meant "birth." Similarly, the Romans adopted the word natura, which also originally meant "birth," as a translation of the Greek word physis.

The pre-Socratics speculated that "things" had their "origin," physis, in water, air, fire, etc. However, what the later Greek philosophers did was to change the question of the "origin," physis, of "things" or what they came from, into a question of what things were "made of." And they speculated about "atoms," and "forms" and with Aristotle, "substance." [I won't get into Plato's "ideas," because that would take us too far astray.] It was assumed that what they were "made of" was "unchanging," and so the word physis and later natura came to have the meaning of unchanging "nature," as we often use the term today.

We now know that so-called "physical things" are not unchanging. And we think that, according to the Big Bang theory, there was even a time at the beginning of the present universe when there were no atoms, and even the so-called "elementary" particles were being "born."

Ortega was famous, at least for those who read him, for having said that "Mankind does not have a nature but rather . . . a history." It turns out that even Nature does not have a "nature" in the sense of being unchanging, but rather a history which includes a "birth," a "life," and a "death," as do we. It's time for the science of Natural History to regain it's stature.

I hope that this is useful in clarifying some of the confusion arising from the first question "What is the reality of any thing?" and leads us to a dicussion of the previous question "What is a 'thing'?" Then we can perhaps look at housby's question with "new eyeglasses" to see if it still has any meaning.


Here's looking at you, kids! :flowers:

But reality is not fallible (or infallible). People are. Reality is what it is, just like anything else.

I did not say reality is fallible, I said our ability to understand reality is. One could go as far as to say we have no understanding of reality, that what we understand is entirely fiction.

And if we are incapable of deducing what reality is, then the term itself is only meaningful in a subjective manner, and therefore contaminates any argument in which it is used by claiming to root the argument on the foundation of "reality", when it should be said as "perceived reality".

hi housby

while i would strongly empathise with that statement personally, i do not think it is valid, lest it becomes the tyranny of uncertainty. Thinking the unthinkable can be very traumatic ...... and defending stability can be very valuable.

As well as your "answers" to my posts, Kenneth, I have been keeping an eye on the ever increasing debate between yourself and Jeeprs. Can I just ask Kenneth, what is it like to live in your seemingly completely closed mind? Philosophy is about thinking the unthinkable and then debating it. Not taking an entrenched stance and defending it.

Philosophy is about discovering what is true, whether or not it is what most people believe is true.

But philosophy is not about criticising those who disagree with the entrenched views of others. Incidentally, if you have looked at what philosophy actually is you would notice that, over hundreds (thousands) of years, it has continually thrown up ideas that have challenged the ideas of the time. The reason for this is that "truth" continually changes depending on the scientific advances of the time. It was once "true" that the earth was flat, now we know different. It was once "true" that matter is solid, now we know that it isn't. Philosophy is about thinking the unthinkable in order to atain knowledge that is as near as possible to the "truth" but, as we all know, that very truth which we seek is only true until a better truth comes along.

But philosophy is not about criticising those who disagree with the entrenched views of others. Incidentally, if you have looked at what philosophy actually is you would notice that, over hundreds (thousands) of years, it has continually thrown up ideas that have challenged the ideas of the time. The reason for this is that "truth" continually changes depending on the scientific advances of the time. It was once "true" that the earth was flat, now we know different. It was once "true" that matter is solid, now we know that it isn't. Philosophy is about thinking the unthinkable in order to atain knowledge that is as near as possible to the "truth" but, as we all know, that very truth which we seek is only true until a better truth comes along.

I suggest that truth is an adjective for beliefs we consider justified. I have a "justified belief" that KennethAmy will not agree to this, no matter how otherwise persuasive your arguments are.

"Truth" functions for some as a plug for that god-shaped-hole.

As I said, philosophy is about the truth, and following the argument wherever it leads, regardless of whether what is being investigated is what you call "an entrenched truth" (whatever that means) or not. After all, an "entrenched truth" may be true. In fact. that may be why it is "entrenched". Anyway, whether it is or not is irrelevant.

If what we believe is true turns out, on investigation, to be false, then it was never true in the first place. It was only believed to be true. What it is replaced with is not a "better truth". It is a truth.

Until it is proved false! Then it is simply something that was once accepted as truth.

I often know when something is real and when it isn't. For instance, I know that the duck I see on the shelf in the toy store is not a real duck. And I know that mirages are not real. There is nothing subjective about those.

That is right. But, of course, it may never be proven false, since it is true. Don't forget that. That a proposition that is true might be false (its negation might be true) is no reason to think it is not true, anyway. Might be false, and is false, are two very different things. It might be false that Quito is the capital of Ecuador (and Ecuador's second city, Guyaquill might be the capital). But that doesn't mean that it isn't true that Quito is the capital.

When you say "real" you assume your assertion has an actual bearing on reality, correct? However, if what we experience turns out to be a lie, a fiction, masking reality, then when you say you know that the duck in the store is not a real duck you are simply arguing semantics, and I have already admitted that such statements can be true, because they are by definition true! However, definitions themselves are potentially just a use of semantics, and web of words interconnected.

So, while distinguishing the symbols of a fake duck and a real duck is useful to humans, that does not mean the distinction gives any bearing on reality. It merely aligns with the symbols of "real" and "not real" that you have in your head.

When you say "real" you assume your assertion has an actual bearing on reality, correct? However, if what we experience turns out to be a lie, a fiction, masking reality, then when you say you know that the duck in the store is not a real duck you are simply arguing semantics, and I have already admitted that such statements can be true, because they are by definition true! However, definitions themselves are potentially just a use of semantics, and web of words interconnected.

So, while distinguishing the symbols of a fake duck and a real duck is useful to humans, that does not mean the distinction gives any bearing on reality. It merely aligns with the symbols of "real" and "not real" that you have in your head.

Scotty,
I realise this is in response to a post by Kenneth so forgive me but I don't want to start lookng for it. The whole point of my original post was defining reality in it's entirity, not whether a piece of plastic on a shelf that looks like a duck is a duck. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. If it's a piece of plastic (or anything else for that matter) that looks like a duck it isn't. I agree with you Scotty and I think you grasp the idea of the thread well. Others seem to think that by comparing one thing to another they are somehow destroying the theory (and that is all it is). The problem is what if both the things you compare are equally amorphous and lacking in "reality?" If reality is all in the mind (a point that has been argued for centuries) then both the duck and the non-duck are unreal. To compare two non-real things in order to prove which is "real" seems a bit pointless.
Stay with this one Scotty, you'll enjoy it.
Thanks for the post.

But sometimes, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it turns out to be a cleverly constructed toy duck* Have you ever been to Madame Toussaud's wax-works museum on Baker Street in London? I once went up to what looked like a guard to ask him a question, and spoke to him for about thirty seconds before I realized that he was a very cleverly constructed wax-work. So don't be so complacent. You don't think that the wax-work guard and the real guard who was laughing at me were both unreal do you? Both unreal how?

Christian Scientists think that "reality is all in the mind". Which is why they believe that illness and death are both unreal. What do you think? Just because people think something is true, that doesn't make it true.

Or, as John F. Kennedy once remarked, "Where there is smoke, there is a smoke machine".

No, I don't think the world is all in the mind (I've said this many times but it's so long ago now I've grown a beard). I just think that it is possible because when you try to define anything it becomes a little intangible and hazy.

However, if what we experience turns out to be a lie, a fiction, masking reality . . .