The following question was posted to the Ask a Philosopher web page.
On Thu Jan 13 20:21:48 GMT 2005, Darren (darrenicus@yahoo.co.uk) asked:
I contend that reason can only confirm the reality of the Self, since everything else is experienced within and by that Self. Existence is what we are and what we experience within. Why do philosophers spend so much time pondering realities beyond themselves when nobody can know anything beyond itself? Isn't a belief in material reality a philosophical crime in the sense that philosophy should be devoid of leaps-of-faith?
Here is the answer I provided.
In the history of Philosophy, there are two quite distinct traditions about the nature of the relationship between “the Self” and what we think we perceive - what we think is real. They are the Idealist, or the "Inside-Out" tradition and the Realist or "Outside-In" tradition. (I like the more descriptive labels. I feel they are less confusing, since the Idealist/Realist dichotomy is used in many different ways and many different places within philosophy.)
The "Inside-Out" tradition is best exemplified by the famous quote from Rene Descartes - "Cogito, ergo sum!" - "I think, therefore I am!" Philosophers of this tradition start with the incontestable premise that "I think", and deduce from that the inescapable conclusion that consciousness is the fundamental given of metaphysics. Their argument is that to deny the premise "I think", or that "I am conscious" is a logical contradiction. The very fact that one is denying it necessitates that one is thinking and is conscious - thus invalidating the proposition.
However appealing this approach is, it suffers from one fatal flaw that no philosopher has ever managed to bridge. In your question, you have highlighted this problem. Philosophers of the Inside-Out tradition maintain that our modes of consciousness and cognition modify or process the sensory inputs, so that what our consciousness is aware of as sensory evidence must be regarded as the products of our consciousness rather than unbiased evidence of reality. In that event, goes the inescapable logical conclusion, either we can know nothing about the nature of an alleged external reality (as you suggest in your question), or anything that we can know about such an alleged external reality must be provided through other means than our senses.
There is no logical line of reasoning that can proceed from the basic premise that consciousness is the fundamental given of metaphysics, to the conclusion that there is a reality outside of one's own consciousness. Since there is no way to validate the evidence of the senses, there is no basis from which to conclude that the sensory evidence is valid. Philosophers of the Inside-Out tradition are therefore forced to conclude that all that is perceived, as well as all the contents of consciousness is actively created by the nature of consciousness – the “Self” in your parlance. As it is impossible, therefore, to logically derive the existence of an external reality, there can be no logical foundation for any constraints on the nature of the contents of a particular person's consciousness.
So we have philosophers like Berkeley who argue that there is no external reality. What we think of as “reality” is but ideas in some consciousness – specifically God’s consciousness. And we have Kant who argues that our understanding of the nuomenal world (the un-perceivable and unknowable reality that is the foundation beneath our sensory perceptions) is governed by the structure of our consciousness.
The proponents of the "Inside-Out" line of reasoning support their arguments with examples and analyses based on evidence from the senses. Which is, of course, a logical contradiction since they argue that the evidence from the senses cannot be trusted. They assume that consciousness, as prior and primary to the sensory evidence, must generate our understanding from the evidence of our senses. Since this understanding is not a pure product of our senses, therefore what we understand about our sensory perceptions cannot be trusted as evidence of an objective reality.
Therefore, there can be no logical necessity for any standardization or similarity of the contents of consciousness from one person to another. In fact, there can be no logical necessity that there exists anything other than one’s own consciousness. Any suggestion that there exists a reality, or that there exists other minds, is founded on untrustworthy evidence from the senses. The pure version of Idealism inescapably drives the logic towards Solipsism. And the only escape is to posit some unsupported additional premise (like Berkeley’s addition of God) that can provide a loop hole.
Because it denies the existence of any form of objective reality, the Inside-Out tradition logically results in "Subjectivist" notions of Truth, Knowledge, and Ethics. The philosophy of Kant is perhaps the pinnacle of this school of thought.
There is also a sub-tradition maintained by those philosophers who start with the same "Inside-Out" premise, but despair over the subjective consequences and proclaim the "Nihilist" school - Truth, Knowledge and Ethics are impossible, illogical, and invalid pursuits for inquiry. The once popular school of "Logical Positivists" are more or less of this school. Which is probably a good explanation why Philosophy and Philosophers as topics of popular awareness are in such ill repute.
The Outside-In tradition is best exemplified by Aristotle. Philosophers of this tradition start with the premise that thinking and consciousness are processes not things. By the very nature of what a process is, in order for a process to "exist" (be in the process of processing) there must be something that is being processed. To think is self-evidently to think about something. To be conscious is to be conscious of something.
Philosophers of this tradition start with this premise and acknowledge that by the nature of processes there must first be something about which I can think or of which I can be conscious, and deduce the inescapable conclusion that the existence of something is the fundamental given of metaphysics. The argument is that to deny the existence of something is a logical contradiction. The very fact that one is denying that something exists necessitates that one is thinking about and is conscious of something - thus invalidating the proposition. (By the act of thinking, one demonstrates that the thing that is thinking, and the thing that it is thinking about, both exist.) This argument is most succinctly (if not most cogently) expressed in the basic axiom of Randian Objectivism - "Existence exists".
Start with the premise of a reality that exists (i.e. is "real") as the fundamental given of metaphysics. Add to that the realization that if thinking and consciousness are processes that are about and of reality, then reality must exist prior to and independent of those processes. You can't have a process in operation, without something being processed. You can't be conscious, without being conscious of something. But a process is not necessary for the existence of something. Thus the premise of a reality that exists as the object of the process of thinking and consciousness, necessitates that reality is objective and independent of those processes.
If reality is not "real" (ie. objectively existent), then the information provided by our senses is not a valid basis upon which to base conclusions about the nature of Reality. For Reality to be other than "real", would mean it would have to be "un-real" (non-objective and/or non-existent). And "unreal" means just that something is imaginary, or ideal, or constituted by our consciousness.
The approach that is more in keeping with "Common Sense" is the view that “out there” is not “in here”. That there is a reality that is outside oneself, that does not respond to the whims and notions of one's conscious attention, and that does not disappear when one's consciousness is focused elsewhere. If reality is "real", then the information provided by our senses is a valid basis upon which to base conclusions about the nature of Reality.
There are numerous writers of the Outside-In (Realist) school of philosophy, beginning with Aristotle, who have written excellent expositions on the 'real' and 'objective' nature of Reality. Among the more recent of these are Ayn Rand(1), David Kelley(2), and William P. Alston(3). I can do no better than refer you to the works of one of these authors. They have done a much better job than I could possibly do, and at far greater length than this text would permit.
The “problem of perception” arises when one views perception as a three step process:- (i) the reception of environmental stimuli at the sensory organs; (ii) followed by some extra-mind neural processing; (iii) and finishing with some form of presentation to the mind for evaluation and consideration. The three step process almost demands the thinker invest all sorts of possibilities for deception and confusion into that middle ground between the retinal image of the chair and the mind’s perception of the chair. From a basis in this model, what one “sees” at step (iii) can be, and apparently often is, different from the sensory impression at stage (i). With this view as the paradigm, one cannot avoid talking about things “as they really are” as different from things “as they appear”. And from there, one is drawn almost inevitably into the sceptical paradox of denying the possibility of knowing anything about “things as they really are” (if indeed such a thing exists) whilst driving the car to work during rush hour.
The problematic three-stage model is a tempting error to anyone from the Inside-Out (Idealist) Tradition, or anyone with a penchant for viewing the mind as more than just neural processes within the brain (a Dualist). To anyone with an overt or covert commitment to Idealism or Dualism, anything other than a three-stage model seems to be obviously wrong. As the question points out, to an Idealist who must deny the existence of an external reality, reason can only confirm the reality of the Self, since everything else is experienced within and by that Self. Existence is what we are and what we experience within. For a Dualist, who must deny the identity of the Self and the Brain, neurological science has followed the nerves “back” from the sensory organs, and demonstrated that all there is, no matter how far “back” you look, is merely electrical signals between different sets of neurons. So obviously, there must be some sort of “theatre” where all these electrical signals get translated into some form of “image” that the mind can then understand and be aware of. Obviously, the mind is not aware of the electrical signals that are being exchanged during all that second-stage processing.
With the three-step, Idealist or Dualist, model of perception, one can entertain all sorts of fancy thought experiments ranging from the Brain in a Vat to Descartes’ Demon, where the mischief is located somewhere between the sensory receptors that receive the image of “things as they really are” and the mind that receives the image of “things as they appear”. One can then argue that what the mind “perceives” is not what the senses receive from the environment. And therefore, even in the absence of mischief, what the mind perceives as the way the world “appears” is not necessarily the way the world “really is”. And since we can never know whether some perception has been the result of mischief along the way, we can never know “things as they really are”. Of even if there is such a thing as “the way they really are”.
Which raises the question of just what exactly would be the nature of some thing “as it really is” as opposed to the way that the thing “appears” – if in fact there is such a thing at all. The best answer that the Dualist can provide is Kant’s. The phenomenal world (the world “as it appears”) is in some way regularly dependent on the nuominal world (the world “as it really is”). But that does not really address the question of just what it would mean for something to be “as it really is” as opposed to how it “appears”. The obvious intent of distinguishing between the two, is to permit that “things as they really are” can be different from “things as they appear”. But since we can never determine what that difference is, and can only ever determine how things “appear”, it leaves unanswered the question of just how things could be “as they really are” if that is different from how they “appear”. And of course, it leaves unanswered the question of whether there is such a thing as “how things really are”. It leaves unaddressed the possibility that there is nothing at all outside of “things as they appear”. But if they are in fact different, is it possible to conceive how they might be different? Indeed, if they are in fact different, is it possible to conceive of any answer to the question asked? It is even possible to conceive of “things as they really are” in a way that is different from “things as they appear”?
The significance of this question is highlighted when one considers just how one navigates a car through rush hour traffic on the way to work. The tolerances that apply to rush hour driving are pretty narrow (especially on a rapidly moving highway). It would not take much of a difference between the way things appear and the way things really are to cause an accident. Yet there are very few accidents that are attributed to such a difference. Which seems to imply that there is no practical, operational, day-to-day difference between “things as they appear” and “things as they really are”. So why do philosophers make such a great to-do about such a difference if it doesn’t seem to exist on a practical level? The unanswerable nature of this question (given the three-stage model of perception), is an indication that the concept of a difference between “things as they really are” and “things as they appear” is not a clear one. And that gives a clue to how to resolve the paradox.
The solution to this paradox is to avoid taking the first step. Reject the Inside-Out (Idealist) Tradition in favour of the Outside-In (Realist) Tradition. And then change the initial paradigm from a three step process to a two step process:- (i) the reception of environmental stimuli at the sensory organs; (ii) which is itself the presentation to the brain/mind for evaluation and consideration. With a two-step model as the basis, there is no longer any room for a separation between “things as they really are” and “things as they appear”. The presentation that the brain/mind receives is the image of “things as they really are”. That gives complete meaning to both phrases, explains the regular dependence between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, and answers that unanswerable question. There are no traffic accidents attributable to the difference between “things as they appear” and “things as they really are” because there is no difference. “Things as they appear” is “things as they really are”.
To a Realist-Monist such as myself, electrical signals between different sets of neurons is what the mind is. The “theatre” where sensory data gets translated into some form of image that the mind can understand is just exactly the initial sensory receptors – the place where environmental stimuli first get translated into electrical signals. The impact of certain wavelengths of light on the retina *is* a sensation of red. The impact of a certain frequency of vibrations on the cochlear nerve *is* the sound of Middle C. The retinal image of the chair *is* an image of the chair as it really is. And the mind perceives that image from the retina. The chair “appears” to the mind/brain “as it really is”. The problem of rush hour driving is just one familiar example of the evolutionary pressures that would ensure a seamless union of “things as they are” with “things as they appear”. Any differences between the two would have had a tendency to get our ancestors killed. Since it is indisputable that we are here, our ancestors were obviously able to avoid that source of error. Hence the unavoidable conclusion that evolutionary pressures would ensure that there is no such difference.
Evolutionary pressures also, by the way, explain the point often raised by critics, that we are designed to perceive objects that are in some sense like ourselves. At each stage in our evolution from simple replicating chemical molecules to complex multi-celled and conscious organisms, the economics of dealing with evolutionary pressures would ensure that we would perceive only those environmental threats that we could deal with. An individual Escherichia coli bacterium would have little use for an ability to perceive the tiger hiding behind a bush and his intended lunch. But would have every use for an ability to detect food, and react to a deleterious chemical environment by wriggling away. In a similar way, the most significant environmental features for human beings – food and physical threats – are almost all on roughly the same physical scale. It has only been quite recently (say the last 200 years) that the threat of micro-life has been greater than the threat of a tiger behind the bush or simple starvation.
(1) Rand, Ayn; Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Expanded Second Edition, Edited by Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff; Penguin Books, USA, Inc. 1990; ISBN-0-453-00724-4
(2) Kelley, David, The Evidence of the Senses, A Realist Theory of Perception; David Kelley; Louisiana State University Press, 1986; ISBN 0-8071-1476-6
(3) See for example - Alston, William P.; Realism and Anti-Realism; A Sensible Metaphysical Realism; The Reliability of Sense Perception;