German Idealism really depended on Descartes and that whole train of thinkers from John Locke and Hume. However it was mainly Berkeley who brought out the major conflict between notions and sensations. [Thoughts and states of mind are not like sensations.]
But largely ignored was Thomas Reid who blew the whole boat out of the water.
Still people wonder about the epistemology of Thomas Reid.
To me it seems clear that it must be like Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross--non intuitive immediate knowledge. Also there is the point of Kelley Ross that he made in his PhD Thesis "Ontological undecidability." That neither axis is primary--not the subject nor object.
So how do thoughts and sensations interact? Kelly Ross suggests by the pole of intentionality.
Maybe you could say this is looking backwards. After you read Kelley Ross [the Kant Fries system] and then you look at Thomas Reid you can see how Reid was already implying those ideas. But still to me these ideas look to be really from Reid.
As Reid says: we do not need to consult with Aristotle or Locke in order to know that pain is nothing like the edge of a sword. And it is not by logical deduction that we understand what the edge of a sword is. And if so the whole theory of idealism falls.
Plato has the idea of recognizing universals by remembering our state before birth. This is in fact like Reid that there are plenty of things we know not based on reason and not based on the senses.
Some people complain about Thomas Reid that he did not explain how we know them.
Also they do not see how he refutes Hume. But Reid refutes Hume simply by this. Hume assumes that reason only tells us a very limited set of things. Things that are contained in definitions. He never proves this, or even brings any kind of evidence. To refute Hume all you have to do is not accept his absurd premise. Reason recognizes lots of things that are not known by definitions nor by the senses.
[This fact is very important in terms of politics. Communism is built of a modification of German Idealism. If German idealism is based on a mistake, it might be well to drop communism.]
[I really do not mean to deride good points made by Idealists. Rather, my point is more along the lines of emphasis. As Reid himself noted, Berkeley made some important points. But as far as I am concerned, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus are enough for me.
I might mention that today I think the best philosophers are Kelley Ross and Michael Huemer. Not that everything is 100%. Danny Frederick and others have made of good points and critiques. Still over all I think they are about the best thing out there.
Kelley Ross takes the Leonard Nelson approach based on Kant and Fries to it utmost limits. And Huemer does the same with the intuitionist foundational ideas. To me they seem tantalizingly close.
But largely ignored was Thomas Reid who blew the whole boat out of the water.
Still people wonder about the epistemology of Thomas Reid.
To me it seems clear that it must be like Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross--non intuitive immediate knowledge. Also there is the point of Kelley Ross that he made in his PhD Thesis "Ontological undecidability." That neither axis is primary--not the subject nor object.
So how do thoughts and sensations interact? Kelly Ross suggests by the pole of intentionality.
Maybe you could say this is looking backwards. After you read Kelley Ross [the Kant Fries system] and then you look at Thomas Reid you can see how Reid was already implying those ideas. But still to me these ideas look to be really from Reid.
As Reid says: we do not need to consult with Aristotle or Locke in order to know that pain is nothing like the edge of a sword. And it is not by logical deduction that we understand what the edge of a sword is. And if so the whole theory of idealism falls.
Plato has the idea of recognizing universals by remembering our state before birth. This is in fact like Reid that there are plenty of things we know not based on reason and not based on the senses.
Some people complain about Thomas Reid that he did not explain how we know them.
Also they do not see how he refutes Hume. But Reid refutes Hume simply by this. Hume assumes that reason only tells us a very limited set of things. Things that are contained in definitions. He never proves this, or even brings any kind of evidence. To refute Hume all you have to do is not accept his absurd premise. Reason recognizes lots of things that are not known by definitions nor by the senses.
[This fact is very important in terms of politics. Communism is built of a modification of German Idealism. If German idealism is based on a mistake, it might be well to drop communism.]
[I really do not mean to deride good points made by Idealists. Rather, my point is more along the lines of emphasis. As Reid himself noted, Berkeley made some important points. But as far as I am concerned, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus are enough for me.
I might mention that today I think the best philosophers are Kelley Ross and Michael Huemer. Not that everything is 100%. Danny Frederick and others have made of good points and critiques. Still over all I think they are about the best thing out there.
Kelley Ross takes the Leonard Nelson approach based on Kant and Fries to it utmost limits. And Huemer does the same with the intuitionist foundational ideas. To me they seem tantalizingly close.
