Who has Doomed Philosophy to the Quagmire of SIS?
March 18th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Who has Doomed Philosophy to the Quagmire of SIS? :: Who has Doomed Philosophy to the Quagmire of SIS? :: Who has Doomed Philosophy to the Quagmire of SIS? :: Who has Doomed Philosophy to the Quagmire of SIS?
Joseph Polanik wrote:
> >>in the thread concerning Hume’s brain you indicated that you could not
> >>explain how the I-2 could be self-instantiating. unless you now have
> >>such an explanation, how do you avoid the conclusion that there are
> >>any others at all?
>
> >because the very notion of causal instantiation is exactly like the
> >notion of matter - we either have no positive concept of it at all, or
> >the concept is completely phenomenal. Just as no one has ever
> >experienced matter, but only phenomenal qualities that are attributed
> >to matter, no one has ever experienced causality (including
> >instantiation), but only one phenomenon following another, in which
> >case the antecedent phenomenon is assumed to have “instantiated” the
> >subsequent one. So appealing to “instantiation” brings you no closer to
> >any metaphenomenal reality than before.
>
> you have undertaken to show that I have doomed philosophy to the
> quagmire of SIS merely by asking ‘what am I?’; but, if you deny that
> there is at least one metaphenomenal reality, you have yourself created
> the quagmire into which you are sinking. you can’t blame that on me.
I can blame you for merely asserting a “metaphenomenal reality” with
absolutely no evidence whatsoever. The only thing I am denying is that a
philosopher who demanded an “empirically testable claim” from me should
then turn around and make an empirically unfounded claim. Philosophers
should give evidence, no?
