Reality after realism | Philosophers Hilary Lawson & Michael Della Rocca on the nature of reality

Philosophers Michael Della Rocca and Hilary Lawson discuss differing views of a post-realist understanding of the world.

Do you agree with one of them? Is leaving realism behind a good idea to begin with?

Philosophical realism, the idea that language is able to accurately describe reality, has been a central belief of most analytic philosophers from its outset more than a century ago. But should we be sceptical of this common-sense idea? Join renegade analytic philosopher Michael Della Rocca and post-postmodern philosopher Hilary Lawson as they put realism to the test and propose radically different solutions for understanding of both language and the world. Hosted by Sophie Scott-Brown.

#realism #philosophy #metaphysics

Philosophical realism, the idea that language is able to accurately describe reality, has been a central belief of most analytic philosophers from its outset more than a century ago. But should we be sceptical of this common-sense idea? Join renegade analytic philosopher Michael Della Rocca and post-postmodern philosopher Hilary Lawson as they put realism to the test and propose radically different solutions for understanding of both language and the world. Hosted by Sophie Scott-Brown.

00:00 Introduction
00:44 Against explanations
02:33 Reality as metaphor
05:40 The sceptical approach
08:40 We all have to work out how to live

[arctic_haze]

"Philosophers Disagree On The Nature Of Reality" is a title of the same kind as "Dog bites a Man". Isn't it what they are supposed to do?

[etnografo]

The theory of distinction implied in the talk comes from Spencer-browns Laws of Forms and is very good worked in the Closure book of Hilary Lawson.

[blankfaceblink]

Metaphor is an interesting method, implies a shared mind and temporary structures of associations/relationships.

[Psycandy]

the fact that philosophers disagree on the nature of reality is, in itself, an agreement of a shared, common reality - which you need in order to determine the level of (dis)agreement. Interestingly, we now have an extra, energy only (virtual) dimension - where these words exist, incidentally - and yet this ability to create and destroy concurrent dimensions at will is not mentioned. There's no consensus that I exist, from your point of view, and in fact my country of birth does not exist (Rhodesia) so my existence is certainly questionable.

[Thomas-gk]

Philosophers discuss these questions since thousands of years without coming to any substantial result with all their rationalistic explanatory power. The scientific method is used since three centuries and changed the world fundamentally. Which method might be the more successful one?

[petervandenengel]

9:37 That is a post modern explanation. When it is not real, how could it serve us achieving goals we want? Like what for instance.
So far the only thing AI has done (apart from customer service, which is fine) is having me figuere out what mistakes it made in reasoning (is playing the game the only intention, or how could it otherwise be of service to anything, when it has not). Including attempts for forgery and by asserting deliberate psychylogical pressure by trolling.
I am not discussing with machines anymore. When they don't represent a reasonable class of thinking belonging to anyone (the opportunistic post modernism), nor represent a class of thinking worth while exploring further.

[bastiaanvanbeek]

1. Why are all the words in the title capitalised?
2. Philosophers should be discussing the nature of reality with scientists not with other philosophers.

[madguruJ]

I had to read this type of thing at uni, some of it preposterous, boring and pointless, some brilliant but it’s true scientists don’t have answers either, only a method that bears fruit, you can’t really compare so it is all metaphorical in a sense

[petervandenengel]

Closure refers to an entanglement which is defined by its recognized (by the observer using language) points of value and therefore not unintelligible. But to be defined further.

Recognizing a pattern in the stars is one thing. The ancients assumed all animals on earth represented a message from god. So they transfered these images to the star patterns (of the zodiac). Because that is where the transmitter was supposed to be.
It does not matter whether this represents a material reality. It reveals (although it contains hidden information) what construct their believe system regarding the typologie (or ontology) of how the year cycle was organized was based on. There must have been some logic in there which was equivalent to their observation of reality.

[mironsergeev]

Arguments about realism should not entertain mindless criticism that masquerades as rationalism. The whole debate seems like a waste of resources when focused on just these talking points.

[rem_av]

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

[MartinClausen]

Hilarious that Della Rocca uses language to describe the distinction between himself and Lawson while claiming that distinctions are unintelligible.

[adamguitar]

The nature of reality isn't something we should look to philosophers for, as the best they can provide is speculation, and never an answer, for once they have an actual answer it was not achieved through philosophy.

[Spiegelradtransformation]

Do philosophers think about Worlds easiest way to go.
Universe wasn’t studying physics.

[Ronald-guft]

Does this garbage actually impress people?

[bradmodd]

Since spacetime was destroyed, doomed and anihillated, naive realism gets a rough time for it's concepts like up, down, near, far, left and right etc. But why don't we respect these concepts more? They seem like they will be very useful for a lot of time and in a lot of different spaces. There is more than one way to skin a cat.