Krisztina Biber
Department of Philosophy
Coordinator
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Central European University
Nador u. 9. | 1051 Budapest, Hungary
The CEU Department of Philosophy cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
on
The (Un)Refutation of Idealism
Tuesday, 17 November 2015, 5.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412
ABSTRACT
In 'The Refutation of Idealism' GE Moore famously argues that a certain claim is both the basis for believing that 'esse is percipi' and self-contradictory. The claim in question is the identification of the sensation of e.g. blueness with the object of the sensation, namely blueness - or perhaps an instance of blueness - itself. Call this 'Objectualism' about the sensation. The connection between Objectualism and the esse is percipi thesis was noted by Berkeley (Notebooks 609), though obviously he did not think it self-contradictory. In this paper I first defuse Moore’s charge of self-contradiction before defending Objectualism on two grounds: first, that if we accept the argument that naïve realism best explains the phenomenology of perception, especially what is called transparency, then Objectualism provides a better explanation than other relationist forms of naïve realism; and secondly, Objectualism avoids the most problematic forms of the hard problem of consciousness (something Berkeley also noted at the start of the second of the Three Dialogues). Neither Berkeley nor Moore suggest that Objectualism alone entails that esse is percipi, but it does provide a fertile starting point for idealism