Reality is relative, not absolute.

@fresco,

Resorting to authority is no dialogue. This is specially valid for a person that claims that reality is negotiated socially. if you have a tangible argument which is logic against the very old and powerful argument about the infinite regression on what creates the creator paradox please present it. Otherwise stand still. "Sam's Wife" arguments and obscurantism is exactly what you have been doing so far when you resort to authority instead of clarification. Arguing that something is correct because the priest said so is precisely what houses wife's do when questioned. I suppose the problem when attempting to dialogue with you resides in your lack of competence to justify your irrational beliefs, a very common problem.

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@cicerone imposter,

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Individuals believe anything they wish as their reality, and that includes believing in their god(s). Nobody else can talk them out of what people believe, simply because that's their reality

That is indeed the essence of the thesis "reality is relative", with the proviso that beliefs tend to be between individuals with common perceptual focuses, and (not so simply) the social interactions of those individuals can alter beliefs.

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@fresco,

I'm not so sure it's the social interactions that alters belief. Any individual is capable of arriving at truths or beliefs on their own whether right or wrong.

However, if there is a 'norm' to belief, it's based on one's environment, and what the individual's parent teaches them. I call religion an accident of birth.

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@cicerone imposter,

Don't forget that "beliefs" are always expressed via language acquired from others.

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@cicerone imposter,

C.I., thanks. Your Asian roots may be manifesting. The greatest of all paradoxes (for me at least) is that the Great Empty Circle--a symbol for Ultimate Reality--is both full (the source of all phenomena) and empty (there's nothing we can say about it). IT is absolute and permanent but its contents are relative and impermanent. Oh well, at least it sounds good (to me, all "knowledge" is provisional opinion. I like that better than blind guesswork).

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@JLNobody,

You are not saying any more then what I say. No one is attempting to blind guess descriptions of reality other then it is what it is. This is not an epistemological debate.

Regarding the theory on the non representational nature of language there is only one small remark need to be made. The theory itself is expressed by language and falls victim of its own criticism. It doesn't swing the argument in favour of a mind created reality as it cannot establish any valid meaningful state to "observer" any more then "naive realists" can to objects in themselves.
More can be said if considering for what is worth the very recent studies in Neuroscience regarding the process of Consciousness not being in control of whatever it produces. There is no one negotiating reality because there is no one IN CONTROL of their own reality to negotiate this or that ought to be status. Regarding "reality" as a phenomena all we can say is that it is a self unfolding process. It is what it is.

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@fresco,

We can only arrive at ideas about reality through language. There's nothing else except the individual's emotional response.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

You obviously have a problem with Heidegger whose thoughts are clearly central to "the context" in which I assert Rorty is operating.

No doubt, but then that's neither here nor there. It's your claim that reality is relative that is at issue here, and I'm saying that you're deliberately blurring the distinction between the description of "reality" and the thing being described in order to make your point. All your allusions to Rorty and Heidegger won't rescue you from your own obfuscation in that regard.

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There is a very simple resume that can be done about Fresco's stance.
When one claims there is no true status for anything, the first thing it applies is to the claim itself. Simply put, there is no possible arguing against this.
This is precisely why I rather take the more soft n far more wise approach JL does when he chooses to be silent about certain matters n circumscribe his comments to opinion making.

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@joefromchicago,

How can I be "blurring the distinction" if I assert that "reality" is a word which in non-philosophical parlance merely denotes agreement between consensual observers as to statements about "what is the case" (for them)?
Are you denying that the word is functionally used that way in those contexts (examples given) ? Are you denying that such contexts involve a mutual subject-object interdependency which is antithesis of the naive realisitic option of "reality" as a state independent of observers or context ?
How can there be "a distinction" if I (like Rorty et al) axiomatically reject as functionally meaningless any difference you may attempt to draw between the phrases "statements of what is the case" and "what is the case".

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@fresco,

How can you establish a subject-object interdependency when you deny the object and through it the very subject is washed away ?
In your world there is only language and as such no terming or coinage addressed through it can be independent from "languaging" itself. You might just as well opt for information theory n drop minds subjects or consciousness as base ground for reality. You make no sense. If language was to be all that there is, with everything else being relative to its contextual unfolding of meanings, "subjects" "minds", "consciousness", are all redundant to objects of language. Language arises as a thing in itself from where all else is derivable, (subjects including). Bottom line, your stance it is NO DIFFERENT from "naive realism" !

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@fresco,

You wrote,

Quote:

Are you denying that such contexts involve a mutual subject-object interdependency which is antithesis of the naive realisitic option of "reality" as a state independent of observers or context ?

Herein lies your problem. Reality isn't based on subject-object interdependency.
It's about the individual's perceptions of what is is. It's not a constant; it's the diversity of interpretation or perception by any individual.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Read Heidegger. There is no "carpenter" and "hammer"....only a "hammering" which if interrupted can result in an evocation of "carpenter" relative to "hammer". That inseparability of subject-object, or "transparent coping" is according to Heidegger the norm for much of what we call "being". Concepts of subjects and objects are not the substrate of being, they are a product of being.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Reality isn't based on subject-object interdependency.

I did not say that. Read the quote again..

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Read Heidegger. There is no "carpenter" and "hammer"....only a "hammering" which if interrupted can result in an evocation of "carpenter" relative to "hammer". That inseparability of subject-object, or "transparent coping" is according to Heidegger the norm for much of what we call "being". Subjects and objects are not the substrate of being, they are a product of being.

I am well aware generally speaking with the concepts of "being there" as opposed to "Being", I am just not satisfied with what it claims, being distinguishable, from what it tries to counter...you have yet to help to make that distinction any clear. If you care to read what I wrote in my previous post properly, you might come to get the point.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

How can I be "blurring the distinction" if I assert that "reality" is a word which in non-philosophical parlance merely denotes agreement between consensual observers as to statements about "what is the case" (for them)?

What you are suggesting there, Fresco...is that it denotes agreement (or disagreement) about what each individual supposes (blindly guesses) to be the case for them.

That has to do with description...because the REALITY is whatever the REALITY is...without regard to whether or not any of the supposed "agreers" has got it right (something we apparently cannot even know.)

By now...you have to understand the difference between the description of REALITY...and whatever it is that REALITY actually is.

But you are treating the issue the way theists treat various aspects of their religions...as a truth revealed (in some way) and not to be questioned.

Why not just stop that?

Quote:

Are you denying that such contexts involve a mutual subject-object interdependency which is antithesis of the naive realisitic option of "reality" as a state independent of observers or context ?

I certainly hope he is saying that the descriptions or understandings of REALITY are the result of a mutual subject-object interdependency...BUT THE ACTUALLY REALITY IS NOT.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

How can I be "blurring the distinction" if I assert that "reality" is a word which in non-philosophical parlance merely denotes agreement between consensual observers as to statements about "what is the case" (for them)?

You blur the distinction every time you refer to "reality" without noting that you're only referring to the word. For instance, you could have titled this thread: "The word 'reality' is relative, not absolute." You didn't, no doubt because no one would have cared whether the word "reality" is relative or not.

fresco wrote:

Are you denying that the word is functionally used that way in those contexts (examples given) ? Are you denying that such contexts involve a mutual subject-object interdependency which is antithesis of the naive realisitic option of "reality" as a state independent of observers or context ?

I really couldn't care less how the word is used, so long as it's used consistently. You, on the other hand, haven't been using it consistently. That's why I jumped into this thread.

fresco wrote:

How can there be "a distinction" if I (like Rorty et al) axiomatically reject as functionally meaningless any difference you may attempt to draw between the phrases "statements of what is the case" and "what is the case".

Point out to me where I made that distinction.

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Heavy stuff guys. I try to keep in mind two things: all of these (increasingly sincere) efforts amount to languaging and only when I am prereflectively silent do I "see" (without philosophically understanding) reality. In a sense all of us are right and all of us are wrong. The good thing here is that we may move each other away from our extremes toward the middle where we can enjoy the balance and flexibility of a transcendental freedom from dualism. The wonderful thing about revolutionaries like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and the post-modernists like Derrieda and Rorty is that they created alternatives to traditional philosophy. They widened the range of options.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Heavy stuff guys. I try to keep in mind two things: all this is languaging and only when silent do I "see" reality.

Are you sure you are "seeing reality", JL? Perhaps even when silent...you do not. But I would be willing to listen to why you say you do.

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In a sense we are all right and all wrong.

In what sense is that?

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The good thing here is that we may move each other away from our extremes toward the middle where we can enjoy the balance and flexibility of a transcendental freedom from dualism.

No way. None of us actually move away from our positions (not necessarily extreme at all)...and this nonsense of "transcendental freedom from dualism"...may be a huge mistake on your part.

Me...I do not know.

I'd be interested to see how you do know.

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@fresco,

You're contradicting yourself. You wrote,

Quote:

Subjects and objects are not the substrate of being, they are a product of being.

Subjects and objects are not the product of being. It's the person's state or symbol of existence.

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Reality is relative, not absolute.

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