@SmashTheState “I made very clear, as did Berkeley, that I was not claiming there is no reality, nor even that there is no objective reality.”
Neither “reality” nor “objective reality” appear anywhere in my response, nor does any part of it rest on the assumption that you or Berkeley are denying the existence of reality (objective or otherwise). If you read carefully, you’ll see that I was responding to your argument rather than your position.
“But the only reality which is knowable is our lebenswelt”
I don’t think this is true. In fact, I think it is a play on words. Our lebenswelt is not reality, but one set of data by which we come to know reality (to the extent that we can/do). When I learn Euclidean geometry, I learn that the world cannot be both Euclidean and have parallel lines that intersect (and thus if I later find intersecting parallel lines, I know that the world is non-Euclidean). The axioms are not the world, but I learn something about the world from them. When light enters my eye or sound vibrates my tympanic membrane, I receive data that my brain then interprets. The data is not the world, but I learn something about the world from it. This is not to say that our lebenswelt never gets in the way of our understanding. All data can be misinterpreted. It is only to say that there is no necessity to stopping at our lebenswelt (unless we have an overly expansive notion of “lebenswelt,” at which point the concept ceases to be helpful).
“which is what @monthly is really referring to in his axiomatic assertions of faith.”
Leaving aside the fact that he made no references to physical matter prior to the answer I was responding to, I am not here to adjudicate your disagreement with @monthly. I am responding directly to the claims of this answer.
“Not all our schema are universal, which is why there is such a schism in thought between Eastern and Western philosophy, for example.”
As someone who has studied both in depth, however, I find that this schism—while present—is often exaggerated. The Pyrrhonians and the Epicureans both profess ideas that are remarkably similar to ideas found in Buddhism. Other ancient Greek schools have interesting similarities with certain elements of Jainism and various Vedic traditions. This suggests that whatever interpretive schema may be at work in our minds are not insurmountable, particularly since many of these similarities are more likely to be due to influence than parallel evolution.
“None of this, however, changes the fact that “matter” as @monthly conceives of it not only does not exist but cannot exist.”
I do not see where @monthly has presented any particular conception of matter for us to investigate. But again, I am not here to adjudicate your disagreement with him.
“Ultimately it simply doesn’t matter whether there is something-in-itself which ephemerally gives rise to the qualia we manufacture into ‘matter,’ since it’s unknowable.”
Leaving aside whether or not it matters (it obviously matters for metaphysical purposes, but it may not matter for any practical purpose), I will simply note that this is a much different claim than the one you originally put forward. Berkeley’s subjective idealism and Kant’s transcendental idealism are rather different points of view.
“This is important because quantum weirdness is constantly showing us that the model of physical matter is neither useful nor accurate.”
The current model. Quantum weirdness has also inspired changes to that model, and the replacement may be both useful and accurate. Again, time marches on—as do philosophy and physics.
“Of course, so do the higher levels of Kohlberg’s scale, which is why our shitty world looks the way it does.”
Kohlberg’s scale is supposed to be observational. It is about changes that people in fact go through (complications of regression notwithstanding), not necessarily those that they ought to go through (though many often read it that way). And it’s interesting to note that Kohlberg’s reading of his observations mysteriously changed when his moral views changed (which tends to undermine the supposed objectivity and scientific legitimacy of it all). Indeed, I find that Kohlberg imports far too many philosophical assumptions into his work and overlooks important distinctions. So while there is much there of value, there is also much there that is misleading.
“We have an ethical duty to our species to assist in helping people to achieve the capacity for higher levels of abstraction before we exterminate ourselves and take a large chunk of multicellular life on this planet with us.”
Sure, and that’s going to require that we go beyond the thinking of the 18th and 19th centuries—brilliant as much of it was.
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