Physicalism Redux

It definitely exists as a term with general recognition; its relative scarcity seems likely to be because, aside from Leibniz's monadism, the most common form of pluralistic idealism seems to be personalistic idealism (as corroborated by its getting an entire section under pluralistic idealism in the Wikipedia article on idealism), and that's the more common term to be discovered in discussions about pluralistic idealism. If you google for personalistic idealism you'll find a lot more meaningful hits than for "pluralistic idealism".

This implies that the term "pluralistic Idealism" is not at all a common term for "Personalistic Idealism", which itself seems to a little vague ~ it comes broadly under Personalism, which is an umbrella for a set of ideas relating to Personal Idealism.

None of these terms and or movements seem to have garnered much attention in broader academic or continental philosophy, but many seem to lament this.

They do seem very interesting ~ raised in criticism of Absolute Idealism.

But even as Absolute Idealism was left behind, Personal Idealism never seem to gain too much traction, either.

This is nonsense. It's not at all a pet term.

I should have been clearer ~ it may be used as a term by which someone is trying to express a complex idea, but has had to find something that best describes what they mean.

I defined the term multiple times. You could have inquired if you were confused, rather than simply deny it outright.

Your definitions, yes. But they don't do me any better than my own.

If all we're really squabbling over is words and definitions, this will go nowhere.

[Laird]

None of these terms and or movements seem to have garnered much attention in broader academic or continental philosophy

Even if true (who knows?) that would be irrelevant to your denial of the term "pluralistic idealism". Do you now, finally, acknowledge it as a legitimate term, and acknowledge that you were wrong to claim definitively a little over a month ago that it did not exist?

Your definitions, yes.

My definition of "pluralistic idealism" is consistent with the standard definition. Do you deny this?

Even if true (who knows?) that would be irrelevant to your denial of the term "pluralistic idealism". Do you now, finally, acknowledge it as a legitimate term, and acknowledge that you were wrong to claim definitively a little over a month ago that it did not exist?

The way you appeared to me to be using it back then seemed rather vague. But then your definitions I do find muddled at times.

I acknowledge that it's a term, but I don't know about "legitimate"... I don't find it illegitimate, if that's what you're implying, which is confusing.

It doesn't seem to exist as a clear-cut branch of Idealism, and I don't see what it has to offer when Subjective and Absolute Idealism don't have much to favour them these days. The default seems to be acknowledgement of the individual subject, just not in the way you describe it.

My definition of "pluralistic idealism" is consistent with the standard definition. Do you deny this?

What is the "standard definition" here, even? What makes it "standard"? Who "standardized" it?

[Laird]

I acknowledge that it's a term, but I don't know about "legitimate"... I don't find it illegitimate, if that's what you're implying

Your vagueness makes it clear that you'd prefer to equivocate than to make the simple acknowledgement that you were wrong to deny the existence of pluralistic idealism as a meaningful term in the first place. There's no reason to consider it to be anything other than legitimate.

What is the "standard definition" here, even?

That's a sophistical dodge of my question. Again: do you deny that my definition of "pluralistic idealism" is consistent with the standard definition?

Your vagueness makes it clear that you'd prefer to equivocate than to make the simple acknowledgement that you were wrong to deny the existence of pluralistic idealism as a meaningful term in the first place. There's no reason to consider it to be anything other than legitimate.

I don't find it meaningful, because it doesn't give me any new insights or concepts to work with. Which is where I find claims of a term having "legitimacy" being weird, because that almost implies I'm denying a term's existence, when I am... not? It just hasn't seemed to have had an impact in the Idealist sphere of thought. That doesn't make it "illegitimate", but it doesn't make it... "legitimate", either.

That's a sophistical dodge of my question. Again: do you deny that my definition of "pluralistic idealism" is consistent with the standard definition?

First, give me the "standard definition", whatever that's supposed to be. I hope you don't just mean your definition.

[Laird]

I don't find it meaningful, because it doesn't give me any new insights or concepts to work with.

Irrelevant. Novelty has no bearing on a term's legitimacy. Nobody's anyway contesting that the same concept can be expressed in different words.

Which is where I find claims of a term having "legitimacy" being weird

By "legitimate" I mean the obvious: that it's a recognised philosophical term. The only "weird" thing here is your refusal to accept as much unconditionally.

First, give me the "standard definition", whatever that's supposed to be.

Already done in prior posts. See #191, #202, and #203.

Now, again: do you deny that my definition of "pluralistic idealism" is consistent with the standard definition?

Just to add one of many references for the record:

From the Merriam Webster dictionary:

Not a slight against you, but I can't help but feel this is yet another case where philosophy fails to reach the masses because of its jargon.

It seems this would mean our usual Dualist intuition is then a Pluralist Dualism, and I guess if we read Schroedinger's proposal near the end of his essay What if Life? as the One Mind using actual physical bodies to experience the world...that is Monist Dualism?

Admittedly I would agree with some of Personalism, though as per Sheldrake I see this more as a Monadic [Non-]Constitutive Panpsychism of Extended Minds [where the Soul contains the corporeal body]. It is arguably a Dualism of sorts, though with acceptance of Minds' extension and the "physical" being of the same kind as the Mind-as-Field, we actually have some better reason for why the brain's intricacies can actually funnel/transmit/filter consciousness.

[So no Mind is made up of smaller Minds, neither does a Big Mind split off into smaller Minds. Given all the outstanding questions related to Multiple Personalities, I am increasingly unconvinced the latter is a good argument for how we get Persons.]

This solves the Interaction Problem, aligns with all Psi & Survival evidence AFAICTell, and preserves the "Dualist Intuition" that we are not actually our corporeal bodies.

By focusing on the idea of conscious embodiment as an act of (to some degree forced?) attention, it also is analogous to the pass times of our day such as video games, movies/shows, and reading fiction. [People can forget their current embodiment, to a degree, and wince at getting hit by a turtle shell in Mario Bros for example.]

I don't think there's such a thing as a "perfect metaphysics", but Sheldrake's ideas seem to fit what we want for a theory that is both philosophically sound and actually [relatively speaking] easily explained. (Compare to Kastrup's bizarre IMO "epicycle" of Time as illusory to explain how there can be One True Subject, or the Bottom Up Panpsychist's idea that your thoughts could be made up of little thoughts, and even Cosmopanpsychism & Absolute Idealism's appeal to Multiple Personality Disorder.)

Irrelevant. Novelty has no bearing on a term's legitimacy. Nobody's anyway contesting that the same concept can be expressed in different words.

Though you do seem to have an... interest in me accepting your definitions while apparently ignoring mine, because yours are "standard".

By "legitimate" I mean the obvious: that it's a recognised philosophical term. The only "weird" thing here is your refusal to accept as much unconditionally.

Recognized by whom, exactly? That seems to be my point of confusion.

Recognized by... Wikipedia, with one source, one person? By a dictionary site? It seems rather dubious...

Perhaps to me, recognition means that it has wider knowledge within the philosophical community as a more concrete concept with widely accepted meanings.

For example, Analytic Idealism, I would not consider quite "recognized", in that it doesn't seem to have garnered much interest by other Idealists.

And yet it is more well-known than "Pluralistic Idealism" as a term.

Already done in prior posts. See #191, #202, and #203.

Now, again: do you deny that my definition of "pluralistic idealism" is consistent with the standard definition?

Read those, and I'm still not at all certain that there is a "standard definition", which to me has implications of wider recognition within the greater Idealist community of thinkers.

The problem seems to be that everyone is using different sets of words to describe loosely the same concept, yet that invites confusion, because there is no "standard" I can seem to find.

Yes, I can read someone's words, but I will always unconsciously then compare them to my own overall conceptualizations of the world and what I think I understand of that aspect of philosophy in general, and attempt to understand them through that lens.

[Laird]

Not a slight against you, but I can't help but feel this is yet another case where philosophy fails to reach the masses because of its jargon.

No slight taken, and I'm glad that you implicitly acknowledge that "pluralistic idealism" is a legitimate philosophical term.

It seems this would mean our usual Dualist intuition is then a Pluralist Dualism

I suppose so, yes, although I don't remember encountering that term until now. I did find it in the title and abstract of the article Pluralistic dualism: The system of Descartes., so I'm not going to deny that it is a legitimate philosophical term.

and I guess if we read Schroedinger's proposal near the end of his essay What if Life? as the One Mind using actual physical bodies to experience the world...that is Monist Dualism?

Hmm, that seems more dubious. While it's monist with respect to mind, it's pluralist with respect to bodies, so what justifies the one (monist) over the other (pluralist)?

Admittedly I would agree with some of Personalism, though as per Sheldrake I see this more as a Monadic [Non-]Constitutive Panpsychism of Extended Minds [where the Soul contains the corporeal body]. It is arguably a Dualism of sorts, though with acceptance of Minds' extension and the "physical" being of the same kind as the Mind-as-Field, we actually have some better reason for why the brain's intricacies can actually funnel/transmit/filter consciousness.

[So no Mind is made up of smaller Minds, neither does a Big Mind split off into smaller Minds. Given all the outstanding questions related to Multiple Personalities, I am increasingly unconvinced the latter is a good argument for how we get Persons.]

This solves the Interaction Problem, aligns with all Psi & Survival evidence AFAICTell, and preserves the "Dualist Intuition" that we are not actually our corporeal bodies.

By focusing on the idea of conscious embodiment as an act of (to some degree forced?) attention, it also is analogous to the pass times of our day such as video games, movies/shows, and reading fiction. [People can forget their current embodiment, to a degree, and wince at getting hit by a turtle shell in Mario Bros for example.]

I don't think there's such a thing as a "perfect metaphysics", but Sheldrake's ideas seem to fit what we want for a theory that is both philosophically sound and actually [relatively speaking] easily explained.

I'd noticed you discussing this mind-as-field idea with Valmar previously (I forget in which thread). Here's my quick, preliminary critique pending further elaboration as to what exactly you're proposing, and refinement/retraction subject to any refutation you care to provide (noting that I haven't read Rupert's elaboration on this idea, so I'm going solely off what I've seen you write of it):

Mind-as-field, in my view, essentially makes two of the same fundamental errors that Analytic Idealism makes:

1. It conflates experiencer (aka mind/consciousness/person/soul) and experience.
   
2. It treats both as an extended, differentiable energy, and thus in a meaningful sense mistakenly materialises the immaterial.
   

(I'm assuming, to be charitable, that you don't mean a field in the purely abstract, mathematical sense, because that even more obviously is inapplicable, given that it has no tangible reality, and thus could certainly be neither an experiencer nor experience).

Go!

(Compare to Kastrup's bizarre IMO "epicycle" of Time as illusory to explain how there can be One True Subject, or the Bottom Up Panpsychist's idea that your thoughts could be made up of little thoughts, and even Cosmopanpsychism & Absolute Idealism's appeal to Multiple Personality Disorder.)

I share your sentiments re all of those ideas. 👍

[Laird]

Though you do seem to have an... interest in me accepting your definitions while apparently ignoring mine, because yours are "standard".

If you have an alternative definition of your own for pluralistic idealism, then (1) you haven't yet provided it, and (2) it would be non-standard, because I have referenced the standard definition through multiple sources. It's also the commonsense and logical definition. As you pointed out in a post over a month ago, if the "monistic" in "monistic idealism" was referring to idealism as a substance monism, then it would be redundant and tautological. Philosophers don't like redundancy and tautology, so it's obviously not referring to substance (type), and the obvious alternative is that it is referring to concrete instantiations (tokens) of that substance (i.e., the number of individual minds; one in the case of "monistic" idealism; many in the case of "pluralistic" idealism).

Sci gets this. I'm sure you do too, but you'd rather quibble and complain than plainly and simply acknowledge, "Oh, OK, I was wrong that 'pluralistic idealism' isn't a thing. Thanks for setting me straight about that."

Recognized by whom, exactly? That seems to be my point of confusion.

Nah, that's just the game you're playing to avoid acknowledging your original error. It's pretty pathetic and sad to see, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees it.