Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Idealism and Realism

  • Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Transcendental Idealism

    This entry extends and clarifies my post, Blackman Versus Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Modes of Existence.  Preliminaries For Butchvarov, all consciousness is intentional. (There are no non-intentional consciousnesses.)  And all intentionality is conscious intentionality. (There is no "physical intentionality" to use George Molnar's term.)  So, for Butchvarov, 'consciousness' and 'intentionality' are equivalent terms.  Consciousness, by…

  • Realism and Idealism

    An excerpt from an e-mail by Chris C., with responses in blue. . . . I read your post on Butchvarov's latest paper, and you made clear your argument about the problem with the crucial step in the "idealist" position; then you closed with the assertion that realism has its own set of problems.  Granted that…

  • Butchvarov on Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism

    This post is a  stab at a summary and evaluation of Panayot Butchvarov's "Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism" which is available both online and in R. M. Gale, ed., The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics (Oxford: Blackwell 2002), pp. 282-302.  Page references are to the Blackwell source. The ComBox stands open if readers have some informed commentary…

  • More on Modes of Being with Two Applications

    Clarity will be served if we distinguish the following four questions:    Q1. What is meant by 'mode of being'? Q2. Is the corresponding idea intelligible? Q3. Are there (two or more) modes of being? Q4. What are the modes of being? So far in this series of posts I have been concerned only with the first two questions.…

  • When Is an Identification an Elimination, and When Not? Idealism and Eliminativism not in the Same Logical Boat

    A reader, recently deployed to Afghanistan, finds time to raise an objection that I will put in my own words to make it as forceful as possible: You endorsed William Lycan's Moorean refutation of eliminative materialism, but then you criticized him for thinking that Moorean appeals to common sense are also effective against  standard idealist claims such as…