How 'Surreal' Are Ideas?

Yes, shameless plug, but a relevant one! https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1

If you haven't read my work on knowledge within self-context, you may get your answer. There's a summary in the next post down that breaks it down very well.

Reply to Jack Cummins
Not all frames of duality concern a single set of conditions. Neither do all collapses of dualities refer to a single experience or view of the world.

The Parmenides depicted by Plato argues against the separate land of forms but accepts the duality invoked by them as necessary for recognizing the persistence of beings in a world of becoming. In the Sophist, Plato discusses a less absolute way of talking about the eternal being from what comes into being. That change, however, is not a collapse of the separation between the source of order in nature and the willy-nilly of spontaneous events.

The stricter version maintained by Parmenides constrains expectations of what can be explained through Plato's method. The boundary between the mythological and philosophic accounts of experience is maintained, especially as concern 'esoteric' or theological awakening to reality. The divide between the mortal and the divine is wide and deep even if strives for the latter in various ways. That situation is in sharp contrast to the views of Plotinus:

Plotinus, Ennead, IV. 3.12, translated by Armstrong: But the souls of men see their images as if in the mirror of Dionysus and come to be on that level with a leap from above: but even these are not cut off from their own principle and from intellect. For they did not come down with Intellect, but went on ahead of it down to earth, but their heads are firmly set above in heaven. But they experienced a deeper descent because their middle part was compelled to care for that to which they had gone on, which needed their care. But Father Zeus, pitying them in their troubles, makes the bonds over which they have trouble dissoluble by death and gives them periods of rest, making them at times free of bodies, so that they too may have the opportunity of being there where the soul of the All always is, since it in no way turns to the things of this world

Free version

The original duality has been collapsed. The cycle of life and death is explained. Since Plotinus testifies to having made this ascent of soul during his life, it is a personal experience. The role of mythology is to help communicate the experience to those who have yet to make the trip.

Nothing like this story maps onto the dynamic between Daoism and competing views. There is a duality between a 'natural' order and the imposition of 'forms' if you will. What cannot be spoken is placed side by side with what can be. In regard to semantics, Zhuangzi works as a deconstruction of meaning to understand what is worthy and why things happen. What is regarded as 'esoteric' in this regard can be approached but not described as a transition within a comprehensible terrain. The difference between the internal and external, so central to Plotinus, is just a way of talking for Zhuangzi.

Quoting Jack Cummins

...I am not convinced that the primary nature of 'mind' and 'ideas' can be avoided.

"Primary" seems at best a vague word to use here. The nature of mind and ideas seems an awfully important thing to think about to me. Do you think it is those engaged with relevant scientific study who are the ones avoiding thinking about the nature of mind and ideas?

Quoting Jack Cummins

Are ideas mind-dependent, subjective, objective or intersubjective constructs in human semantics?

Ideas are the product of mind, so I see no compelling reason to think they have some sort of independent existence.

Suppose I induce you to accept as true, some idea I've had - through description and argument. Does that mean there is a singe idea and we both share it, or does it mean our minds now independently contain an idea that could be represented with identical semantics? I think the latter, and this can be considered intersubjective. If the idea is novel, and only you and I share it - then when we both die, this idea exists nowhere (at least nowhere in the present).

If the idea has objective existence, where does this idea exist? Platonic heaven? That seems to entail an unparsimonious ontology.

Reply to Jack Cummins

Ideas come into being at the moment of expression, and persist as long as the expression does. It’s why we often write them down or record them if we do not wish to forget them. There, and only there, they can be considered, referred to, and analyzed. Until then it is all the body and its activity, none of which are ideas.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Jack Cummins

Despite materialism and postmodern deconstruction, NeoPlatonism is making a resurgence. What is the significance of this?

Secular mysticism redux.

What is language and its connections to symbolic forms of interpretation?

The latter are messages – signal-to-noise ratios – and the former is a medium.

Are ideas mind-dependent, subjective, objective or intersubjective
constructs in human semantics?

Yes.

A thing is, a thing may be, or a thing is not. We plainly have ideas. Using the word "real" beforehand does not render the topic under discussion more clearly. It probably introduces more obscurity than anything.

If ideas are not mind dependent, then what could possibly be mind-dependent?

This whole physicalism vs. idealism discussion is mostly verbal. Until someone can clearly say when matter stops being matter, or ideas stop being ideas, we are not doing anything.

It's kind of like discussing if cows and animals should be lumped together or kept separate.

Reply to Manuel
I am not sure that using the term 'thing' introduces any further clarity than the word 'reality'. When you say that the topic is verbal, I would argue that a lot of it comes down to language and its limits, as Wittgenstein suggested as constituting the 'limits of one's world'.

One of the main reasons why I gravitate towards the idea of non-dualism is because it makes a case for the two being conjoined. Also, panpsychism suggests different subtle degrees of consciousness than the classical mind-body arguments of dualism.

Also, I am aware that substance dualism is far less dualistic, but even that involves interpretation. That is why I go back to the initial issue, asked by Berkley, as to whether ideas are mind-dependent. I am also aware of the relevance of the perspective of phenomenology. But, even that doesn't explain consciousness itself and whether that is the source of both what is termed as mind and matter in the dualistic split of human thinking.

Reply to tim wood
I am aware that 'real' is a human construct. This is the case whether one adheres to a philosophy of idealism or realism, or materialism. The concept of 'real' is a bit like that of 'truth' and may only be seen as definitive if seen from a standpoint of absolutist philosophies.

I do plan to reply to the other responses. However, I am just changing my title question from 'real' to 'surreal' because I am thinking that may be more interesting. That is because it is a possible way of reframing ideas in the metaphysical imagination.. What do you think? Does it make sense, as opposed to seeing language and symbols in a concrete ways, or is just trying to avoid the nature of clear and critical thinking?

Quoting Jack Cummins

Also, despite the emphasis on physicalism, all interpretations are dependent on ideas and language. What is language and its connections to symbolic forms of interpretation? Are ideas mind-dependent, subjective, objective or intersubjective constructs in human semantics?

Of course, any interpretations of anything depend on our minds processing words/images, ideas shared through language. Language is the main way we think and communicate. You have expressed your ideas here. You know how it works via symbols, syntax and semantics.

We send and receive messages. To inform, to persuade, to express concerns/feelings and so on.
It involves imagination and interaction with self and others. Language fascinates the ordinary reader of fiction and the linguistics expert. Not to mention the philosopher. So many ways...

When it comes to Berkeley and his idealist philosophy. You paraphrased it:

Quoting Jack Cummins

One author he points to is Berkley and the query about whether a tree makes a sound if there is no human being to experience it.

Are you sure that is what he asked? If you weren't there to hear it?

Quoting Wiki

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and perception.
While the origin of the phrase is sometimes mistakenly attributed to George Berkeley, there are no extant writings in which he discussed this question. The closest are the following two passages from Berkeley's A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, published in 1710. [...]

The current phrasing appears to have originated in the 1910 book Physics by Charles Riborg Mann and George Ransom Twiss. The question "When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is near by to hear it, does it make a sound? Why?" is posed along with many other questions to quiz readers on the contents of the chapter, and as such, is posed from a purely physical point of view

This time the question involves 'an animal'. It broadens the perspective. Outwards away from 'man'.

Also, in fiction, the idea is considered by Terry Pratchett in 'Small Gods', p2, when he writes that the recurring philosophical question 'Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?' says something about the nature of philosophers, because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone. At the very least, if it was deep enough in the forest, millions of small gods would have heard it.'

Quoting Jack Cummins

I am aware that 'real' is a human construct.

So 'you are aware' is only "a human construct"? Or 'mortality' is not nonmind-dependent (which I prefer to 'mind-independent'), or real? :chin:

Quoting Amity

... there is always someone in a forest.

Yes, the forest itself (e.g. "Fangorn"). :wink:

Reply to 180 Proof
To go beyond one's 'awareness' would be like becoming some -kind-of-all-knowing- mind-of-'God' state of consciousness. So much of everyday awareness is based on the consensus views of others as a means of confirmation. Even with a sense of mortality, it is based on the deaths of others and empirical observations, as opposed to the awareness of experiencing ultimate death itself.

Reply to Amity
Your further clarification of Berkley's consideration of the tree in the forest is useful. It would be a human fallacy to think that it is only a person who is able to perceive sounds. This is likely to be an anthropocentric fault in philosophy. Language is the way humans process experiences, with the formation of concepts, but it does not mean that it the only possible way. For example, it is possible to form visual representations of ideas and this itself is likely to have come first in human culture, such as in symbolic representations.

Reply to Jack Cummins I don't understand your reply to my previous post.

Quoting Jack Cummins

Language is the way humans process experiences, with the formation of concepts, but it does not mean that it the only possible way. For example, it is possible to form visual representations of ideas and this itself is likely to have come first in human culture, such as in symbolic representations.

Yes, of course, that is why I included 'images':
Quoting Amity

...any interpretations of anything depend on our minds processing words/images,

Ancient representational art.
Quoting BBC News - World's oldest cave art

The painting of a wild pig and three human-like figures is at least 51,200 years old, more than 5,000 years older than the previous oldest cave art.
The discovery pushes back the time that modern humans first showed the capacity for creative thought.

Prof Maxime Aubert from Griffith University in Australia told BBC News that the discovery would change ideas about human evolution.

“The painting tells a complex story. It is the oldest evidence we have for storytelling. It shows that humans at the time had the capacity to think in abstract terms,” he said.

Real or Surreal Ideas can be found and shared anywhere...in imagination and creativity.
I really don't understand what your problem is? I note your edit:
Quoting Jack Cummins

The term 'surreal' in my updated title is a way of seeing ideas and symbols as being a potential shift from metaphysics as absolutes, to the scope of a tentative notion of the metaphysical imagination.

:chin:

'Metaphysical Imagination' - what do you think it is? How have you used it?
In the meantime, I found this: https://philarchive.org/archive/MCSMAE

Reply to 180 Proof Reply to Amity
It's possible that any confusion in my posts is on account of stress, because it can lead to muddled thinking. However, it would probably be going too far to describe me as 'psychotic' or 'deluded'.

If anything, I see it as arising in connection with muddles in the philosophy of ideas, going back to ancient thought. For example, I have some kind of resonance with Plato's theory of forms; this in itself is incongruent with so much of twentieth-first century thinking. The question for me would be whether both the ancients and philosophy after postmodernism, analytic philosophy and Wittgenstein, have mere partial perspectives? The same applies to the division between science and art, as well as between the secular and spiritual viewpoints...?

Quoting Jack Cummins

mere partial perspectives

Maybe you can clarify this phrase ...

Reply to Amity Quoting Amity

Metaphysical Imagination' - what do you think it is? How have you used it?
In the meantime, I found this: https://philarchive.org/archive/MCSMAE

The author of the paper you linked to writes

…justified belief aims at truth, not imaginative capacity, or understanding. If we focus too much on having justified beliefs, it is harder for us to suspend disbelief and try to inhabit views that we don’t believe.

Thinking of metaphysics this way as split off from empirical truth perpetuates a dualism between ideas and reality, the physical and the metaphysical. The philosophers I follow don’t treat the metaphysical as ‘imaginative capacity’, but as the plumbing undergirding the intelligibility of a true belief.

Reply to 180 Proof
What I mean by the idea of 'mere partial perspectives' are viewpoints which differ from one another and are relative. It may be that each human being's unique way of thinking reflects such partiality and relativity of knowledge and understanding.

Reply to Jack Cummins So if I understand correctly what you mean by "muddles in the philosophy of ideas", the ancient and postmodern or secular and spiritual "viewpoints" are like comparing apples and oranges – incommensurable perspectives on, or interpretations of, the "sur/reality of ideas"? i.e. different kinds of maps for navigating different aspects of the same terrain (or even completely different terrains)?

Reply to NOS4A2
Your argument for the existence of ideas as they are thought and expressed is an interesting one. It reminds me of what a tutor once said in a class 'Ideas don't exist unless they are expressed and are only in one's head'. Some people in the class were rather horrified by what the tutor said, but it may capture something of the intersubjective aspects of thoughts and ideas.

Apart from exchange of ideas in conversation and writing, however, there is the repetition of ideas throughout cultures and history. Even though there are many languages there is an almost universality of concepts, such as good, evil, morality and time. This may be down to innate ideas. Alternatively, it could be down to underlying factors in all human experiences of life.

Reply to 180 Proof
Yes, thinking involves maps and models. One way in which I came across this was in the sociology of knowledge. In particular, Berger and Luckmann, in, 'The Social Construction of Knowledge saw the way in which human thought occurs as negotiated socially.

I am not saying this to dismiss epistemology itself, but as about understanding social contexts of knowledge. The whole idea of paradigms involves models. It is possible to see maps and models too literally, as if they are the 'reality' itself. With the idea of the surreal, which I borrowed from the art movement, it would involve the metaphorical. This is going into the nature of the mythical aspects of human understanding.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to Relativist
The view that ideas 'a product of the mind' is open to question, as it is hard to where they come from exactly. That is where, even though Plato's theory of forms and archetypes is still an arguable position because ideas seem to exist almost independently of human conditions. It may be related to biological wiring but it could be more than that.

The problem would be hars to prove, except in conditions in which life was so different from cultural socialisation. The closest proof would come down to individuals raised in the wild, such as by wolves. It is likely that a lot of human understanding involves socialisation and the role of language in narrative construction of experience. Nevertheless, themes exist as universal constructs, possibly as independent ideas in themselves, like the underlying physical laws of nature.

Reply to tim wood
Unicorns exist as a fantastical idea and, who knows, in a previous universe or a future one, they may exist. They may not exist physically at all other than a construct of fantasy. There is a danger of fantasy being mistaken for more than it is and that is probably where 'psychosis' comes in. But fantasy itself, if not taken too literally, can be useful as an alternative to the concrete logic of scientific realism.

Reply to wonderer1 Sorry, I am late getting round to replying to you because I started at the bottom of replies. However, your question is important. It does seem that materialism and realism have become fashionable. This is connected to the rise of science at the centre of philosophy, with philosophy almost being seen as an appendix to science.

The rise of materialism may also be related to popular philosophy, especially thinkers like Daniel Dennett, and his notion of 'consciousness as an illusion'. But, fashions change and who knows what will come next?

Quoting Jack Cummins

Are ideas mind-dependent, subjective, objective or intersubjective constructs in human semantics?

It takes a mind to think about ideas, but the ideas are not necessarily mind-dependent. Some ideas are constructed naturally or socially, others are discovered individually or by different minds independent of each other.

Reply to Joshs Thanks for the quote and informed response. I haven't fully read or understood the paper, as yet. So, not sure of context. Interesting subject. Imaginative plumbing?

Quoting Jack Cummins

It's possible that any confusion in my posts is on account of stress, because it can lead to muddled thinking. However, it would probably be going too far to describe me as 'psychotic' or 'deluded'.

I think you're doing just great, given your stress levels. I'm confused by what it is you're trying to unravel. That's another fine knot you've got me in :wink:
You led me here:

Quoting Amity

Metaphysical Imagination' - what do you think it is? How have you used it?
In the meantime, I found this: https://philarchive.org/archive/MCSMAE

[ BTW, you introduced the idea of psychosis. Is this a case of "You don't have to be mad to plumb 'metaphysical imagination' but it helps." :chin: ]

Edit to clarify: I am asking you what you think 'metaphysical imagination' is and what it involves/entails? You introduced it here:
[quote="Jack Cummins;d15396"...]... seeing ideas and symbols as being a potential shift from metaphysics as absolutes, to the scope of a tentative notion of the metaphysical imagination.[/quote]

Quoting Jack Cummins

Sorry, I am late getting round to replying to you because I started at the bottom of replies.

No apologies necessary. I much too often fail to respond to others who merit a response, to judge anyone for that. Off the top of my head, I can think of recent posts from @Tom Storm, @Patterner, @schopenhauer1, and @Joshs that I have wanted to respond to, but haven't gotten around to.

Quoting Jack Cummins

However, your question is important. It does seem that materialism and realism have become fashionable. This is connected to the rise of science as at the centre of philosophy, with philosophy almost being seen as an appendix.

The rise of materialim may also be related to popular philosophy, especially thinkers like Daniel Dennett and his notion of consciousness as an illusion. But, fashions change and who knows what will come next?

I guess I don't see scientific understanding as so much a matter of fashion, and the direction that things are likely to take in philosophy of mind, to be so mysterious.

I see Dennett as someone who recognized the importance of science to understanding what we are, and as someone who has contributed substantially to philosophical thought on our natures as a result of his efforts at understanding, where the science he was apprised of was pointing.

Reply to wonderer1 :up:

Quoting Jack Cummins

The view that ideas 'a product of the mind' is open to question, as it is hard to where they come from...
..themes exist as universal constructs, possibly as independent ideas in themselves,

No one has had an idea that isn't tethered to his perception, beliefs, and experiences. We can't give a scientific account of the process of creating an idea, but it seems a product of abstract reasoning and pattern recognition. Even seeing a simple pattern is an idea.

Are you suggesting all ideas exist as "universal constructs" before they appear in a human mind? How then, do they get in the mind? Doesn't this mean they existed 100 years after the big bang, and they would have existed even if evolution hadn't taken the accidental course that led to our existence? Suppose there exist intelligent beings (e.g.Tralfamadorians) elsewhere in the universe; do the Tralfamadorians capture the same set of ideas as do we? IMO, this raises more issues than the alternative.

Reply to jkop
It is hard to know how ideas are constructed, in brains and beyond. There is inner and outer aspects of experience and the interface between this is important. It may come down to the issue as to whether the intersubjectivity of ideas is purely about transmission or more than this an independent realm.

Reply to Amity
The article on 'metaphysical imagination' was interesting and I have seen the phrase in a few different contexts. My own working conception of it is about it being less abstract than conventional metaphysics. It would involve not simply philosophers but a multidisciplinary approach from the sciences, arts and field such as anthropology.

The reason why I introduced the term psychosis, was not just due to my own query about my stress and confusion. It was also because I began reading a couple of books in my pile about the thinking of Lacan. He talks about the concept of 'psychosis' and makes connections between psychoanalysis and philosophy in doing so. However, I am still reading the couple of books, so I probably dived in too quickly.

Sometimes, my lack of clarity may be as a result of reading too many books at the same time. If my thread is still active when I have finished I may be able to add them in more fully. Of course, if anyone else has read in this area it may be possible for them to comment but Lacan is complex. I tried reading his own writing on psychosis while I was working in mental health care, but got a bit stuck. Of course, there are online summaries, but I am more of a book reader. Also, the more I research online, the more I come across extra writings which I need to explore ideally. The forum is good in that respect because it allows for collaboration.

Reply to Relativist
Pattern recognition is useful for thinking about ideas and creativity, especially the generation of original ideas. It may be an evolutionary process.

It is interesting to wonder if the Platonic realm of ideas existed before the 'Big Bang' or birth of the universe. Even though he did consider history in this way, it would make sense to see the forms as being outside the dimensions of space and time. Of course, it is questionable whether time itself exists outside of space and time, because the physical nature of reality may not have existed before the 'Big Bang'. That is unless ideas exist an eternal realm, which may be how many ancient, especially esoteric thinkers held in idealist world views.

Reply to wonderer1
I am not completely critical of Dennett as I found some of his writing to be readable and useful for thinking about. His ideas on the origins of language seem important. I guess that it was his idea of consciousness as an illusion that I found too reductive. His philosophy probably followed on from behaviorism, especially the work of BF Skinner, which is significant for philosophy as well as psychology. Such philosophy systems are bound up with determinism.

Quoting Joshs

The author of the paper you linked to writes

…justified belief aims at truth, not imaginative capacity, or understanding. If we focus too much on having justified beliefs, it is harder for us to suspend disbelief and try to inhabit views that we don’t believe.

Thinking of metaphysics this way as split off from empirical truth perpetuates a dualism between ideas and reality, the physical and the metaphysical. The philosophers I follow don’t treat the metaphysical as ‘imaginative capacity’, but as the plumbing undergirding the intelligibility of a true belief.

OK. Update: I started reading the article, then started skimming, then stopped. Confused and bemused.
I have sympathy with the view that imagination is central to understanding no matter what kind of 'truth' is involved. This involves a willingness to investigate other ways of thinking - to come in closer to an other's perspective or 'world'. Are some people more capable of this than others? Creatives in any field?

I didn't read the author as trying to separate ideas and reality. But to see the value in describing metaphysics as being like art rather than science. Views or ideas are developed or generated by imagination. But this also includes what is experienced. It's a combination. But there is a high chance of me not having understood a word!

As to the 'intelligibility of a true belief' - is this about understanding what someone truly believes? How can this be known? It seems that engaging in this might mean putting aside self, or pulling aside our own blinkers, all the better to see/hear/sense an other. Is that what you meant by 'plumbing'? To clear the blockages in pipes? Or is it more a processing system or conceptual structures...

Your chosen quote comes at the conclusion of the article:

Metaphysics as Essentially Imaginative and Aiming at Understanding
Michaela Markham McSweeney
Abstract: I explore the view that metaphysics is essentially imaginative. I argue that
the central goal of metaphysics on this view is understanding, not truth. Metaphysicsas-essentially-imaginative provides novel answers to challenges to both the value and epistemic status of metaphysics.

[...]
There are other things that matter besides truth. Imagination is both intrinsically and instrumentally (in part because it can lead to understanding) valuable. Understanding is an important goal of certain kinds of inquiry. On the metaphysics-as-essentially-imaginative view, both imagination and understanding are central to what metaphysics is for. But justified belief aims at truth, not imaginative capacity, or understanding. If we focus too much on having justified beliefs, it is harder for us to suspend disbelief and try to inhabit views that we don’t believe. And there is value in doing so.

Reply to Jack Cummins I've encountered theists who are "proposition-realists" - meaning that they believe all true propositions that could possibly be articulated, exist timelessly in the mind of God. This would include any idea that a person might develop and articulate. This seems coherent, but it depends on the premise that such a God exists.

Reply to Jack Cummins Thanks for further clarification. Even if we all end up in a tangled web of confusion...it's fun, innit?! Well...hmm...sometimes :wink:

Quoting Jack Cummins

It is hard to know how ideas are constructed, in brains and beyond.

It seems fairly clear that the brain constructs conscious awareness, which in turn, can be about ideas, regardless of whether they're constructed, discovered, mind-dependent or independent, subjective, objective, intersubjective etc.

I don't know of a good reason to believe that there's a dependency relation between the brain and the ideas that one thinks of (disregarding the obsessive etc).

Quoting Jack Cummins

There is inner and outer aspects of experience and the interface between this is important.

The assumption that there are inner and outer aspects of experience is what makes it seem hard. Berkeley understood correctly that there is no way to make sense of such a relation. Therefore, he ditched the outer aspect of experience. Kant tried to reconcile the two within an ontology of conceptual schemes.

Naive realism, however, is the assumption that experiences are direct. Problem solved!

Quoting Amity

'Metaphysical Imagination' - what do you think it is? How have you used it?
In the meantime, I found this: https://philarchive.org/archive/MCSMAE

Wonderful find! :up:

That really resonated with a lot of my thinking. I especially appreciated the contrast of understanding with truth.

Reply to wonderer1 Glad you enjoyed. I just typed in 'metaphysical imagination' et voilà :cool:

It wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Convoluted theories give me a headache.
There's plenty out there relating truth to understanding to interpretation. I wanted something I could get my teeth into, a bit more 'arty' and relatable as it were...

I haven't read all of this but it seems to tick a few boxes - with downloadable pdf:

Quoting Environment and Society - Landscape and the Metaphysical Imagination

“Landscape and the Metaphysical Imagination”
Hepburn, Ronald W. | from Multimedia Library Collection: Environmental Values (journal)
Hepburn, Ronald W. “Landscape and the Metaphysical Imagination.” Environmental Values 5, no. 3 (1996): 191–204. doi:10.3197/096327196776679320.

Aesthetic appreciation of landscape is by no means limited to the sensuous enjoyment of sights and sounds. It very often has a reflective, cognitive element as well. This sometimes incorporates scientific knowledge, e.g.,geological or ecological; but it can also manifest what this article will call “metaphysical imagination,” which sees or seems to see in a landscape some indication, some disclosure of how the world ultimately is. The article explores and critically appraises this concept of metaphysical imagination, and some of the roles it can play in our aesthetic encounters. (Source: The White Horse Press)

On p4/15 the question is posed: Why should metaphysical imagination be underacknowledged today? and then gives the answer as 'embarrassment'. Because it might be seen as a religious experience, lacking rational support. Other strands are explored like truth and the scientific understanding of nature.
So far, I find this thought-provoking, and easy to read in quite an old-fashioned style.
More about the author, here:

Quoting British Aesthetics - Ronald W. Hepburn

Ronnie worked alongside Donald MacKinnon and Antony Flew, both serving as important, early mentors. Other thinkers he often turned to included Kant, Marcel, and Otto. This dynamic set of influences shaped a philosophical approach which insisted upon a dialectic between perception and theory, phenomenology and analytic method, where each would be at hand to question and sometimes undermine the other.
Ronnie was wary of fixed positions, and often preferred a critical metaphysical outlook which sometimes put him at odds with other philosophers. In his exploration of the links and boundaries between the aesthetic, moral and religious, his attention was drawn to wonder, the contemplative stance, imagination, the sublime, freedom, respect for nature, and the sacred. Ronnie brought this distinctive approach together with autobiography, narrative and the shaping of the ethical life to challenge moral philosophy’s preoccupation with rules and principles in his paper ‘Vision and Choice in Morality’, his contribution to an Aristotelian Society-Mind Association symposium with Iris Murdoch in 1956.

***

Quoting wonderer1

That really resonated with a lot of my thinking.

Care to expand? Any examples of how metaphysical imagination is used?

Quoting Jack Cummins

I am not sure that using the term 'thing' introduces any further clarity than the word 'reality'. When you say that the topic is verbal, I would argue that a lot of it comes down to language and its limits, as Wittgenstein suggested as constituting the 'limits of one's world'.

You can substitute "thing" for "phenomenon" or "act" or even "realization". The issue here is that we have ideas - quite clearly. What is gained by asking how "real" these ideas are? In distinction to what, or what's the alternative view that renders ideas to be problematic?

Quoting Jack Cummins

Also, I am aware that substance dualism is far less dualistic, but even that involves interpretation. That is why I go back to the initial issue, asked by Berkley, as to whether ideas are mind-dependent. I am also aware of the relevance of the perspective of phenomenology. But, even that doesn't explain consciousness itself and whether that is the source of both what is termed as mind and matter in the dualistic split of human thinking.

I am not following. Who has claimed that ideas are not mind-independent? If you could point out that person, I may be better able to follow.

I only ask that someone tell me what property or aspect in matter renders "thinking" impossible. I have not seen a convincing reply yet. But I could be missing something.

Quoting Amity

Care to expand? Any examples of how metaphysical imagination is used?

At the moment, the things which come readily to mind are either mind-numbingly technical, or more personal than I feel comfortable talking about on the forum. Let me allow the question to rattle around in my subconscious for a bit, and we'll see what comes out.

Reply to wonderer1 OK. Later... :sparkle:

Reply to Manuel
I am wondering if we are speaking at cross purposes somehow. It is not that I fear ideas are being dismissed. They are certainly taken seriously on the forum. My original motive for writing the thread is a genuine interest in the debate between idealism and materialism, or realism. I see it as complex because there is a level at which ideas are constructs in the brain and in social systems.

However, idealism does have some potential for serious consideration. That is because consciousness may be an intrinsic feature of the development of life's evolution and, not simply a by-product.

Reply to Jack Cummins

Ah. That old debate.

I can say my usual spiel, but I fear I may have discussed it too much already. In a sentence: There is good evidence to believe that Newton showed that we have no intelligible concept of "body" or matter so the distinction between mind and matter cannot be sensibly posed anymore.

Reply to jkop
I do see naive realism as being a problem. Also, the conjoined experience of outer and inner aspects of human experience can make it extremely difficult to put together. We function on both levels and with an angle of thinking about other minds and their inner aspects. It is like weaving inside and outside, in thinking alone and connecting with others, who also have inner lives.

Reply to Manuel
Quantum physics challenges the perspective of both Newton and Descartes.I am certainly not a physicist but from my reading of it, in connection with philosophy, quantum entanglement may be important in the relationship between mind/matter. Physics may have stepped into the ground covered by metaphysics previously. Of course, physics does involve philosophical speculation and interpretation to a large extent. It is far from being simply description of facts.

Reply to Jack Cummins

Quantum physics merely makes Newton's observations much more evident; Newton (nor Locke and Hume and Priestley) could not understand gravity. We don't understand gravity. We understand quantum physics even less.

But the topic I think, should not be prima facie too difficult. One should state what matter is and why is cannot include mental stuff, or the opposite.

If this can be done, then we can proceed. If not, then the issue seems to lack clarity, it is a proposition posed in a question-like format, but it has no answer.

This is done to avoid Descartes formulation of the problem, which most people don't accept in the manner he did at his time. Of course, in his time it made sense to be a dualist.

Reply to Jack Cummins What does it mean to say ideas are surreal? I haven't really been able to work out what you are asking exactly. Maybe I've missed something.

Quoting Jack Cummins

The term 'surreal' in my updated title is a way of seeing ideas and symbols as being a potential shift from metaphysics as absolutes, to the scope of a tentative notion of the metaphysical imagination.

I'm not sure what this means. Aren't all ideas humans hold tentative, even scientific ideas? Science is like a history of discarded ideas.

For something to be surreal, it needs to be bizarre and in conflict with ordinary reality (like a hallucination or dream). Are ideas like this?

Reply to Tom Storm

I have to confess that I changed my title after @Manuels first post querying my use of the word 'real'. I changed my title from 'How 'Real' Are Ideas', replacing the Real to Surreal. It was a bit of an attempt at a language game.

The thread was intended to explore the debate over idealism, but with reference to semantics. The idea of the surreal was meant to point back to the idea of life as a dream. This was an obscure reference to the view of life as a dream, captured in the Hindu concept 'maya'.

My use of the word surreal was also a reference to the movement of surrealism as an the art movement. The movement does draw upon psychoanalysis and the hallucinatory nature of perception. Salvador Dali is probably the most known artist and the surrealist writers did talk of the absurd, fantastic and bizarre aspects of life. I am sorry if what I wrote was too obscure. It probably also follows on from my interest in trajedy and pleasure; from an arts based perspective on philosophy, in that previous thread.

Reply to Jack Cummins Thanks for clarifying. I’m certainly familiar with the art movement.

Quoting Jack Cummins

The thread was intended to explore the debate over idealism, but with reference to semantics.

What "debate"? You haven't even stated the proposition in contention we're supposed to either be for (thesis) or against (antithesis). Please clarify ...

The idea of the surreal was meant to point back to the idea of life as a dream. This was an obscure reference to the view of life as a dream, captured in the Hindu concept 'maya'.

Dreamt by whom/what – isn't the dreamer more than a "dream" – or is "life just a dream" within a dream within a dream ... all the way down? And, besides, what existential-pragmatic-ethical difference does it make, Jack, if metaphysically (according to some ancient tradition) "all is maya"?

Quoting 180 Proof

What "debate"? You haven't even stated the proposition in contention we're supposed to either be for (thesis) or against (antithesis). Please clarify ...

:100:

Reply to 180 Proof

Of course, it does depend whether one sees philosophy all about clear 'black and white' positions. However, I do believe there is some underlying debatable position, which is the validity of idealism. With the concept of 'maya', or life being a dream, it is about all material objects and events being temporary. The dreamer is the ego, taking all that happens so seriously.

That is not dismiss learning events and morality as life is embodied, involving dramas of sentient beings. When reducing the thread topic to its core, it is asking what is wrong with the standpoint of idealism?

I am also aware that some kind of basic definition of idealism may be necessary. To keep it as simple as possible, I will offer one taken from 'The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy':

'The word was first used by Liebniz, for Plato's ontology, to contrast with Epicurus's materialism.'

This is a very brief excerpt from the dictionary definition and I am sure that people adopt differing ones. So, it can also be asked what is idealism and what is materialism, as well as the terms naturalism and realism?

Reply to Jack Cummins Disappointed. It's been done before...and probably better...see Search box for other threads on Idealism. For starters: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13196/speculations-in-idealism/p1 - started by @Tom Storm.

Reply to Amity
It is part of what I wish to discuss, but I am also wishing to consider the nature of language in this. However, I may have rushed in and probably should have followed the principle of listening and thinking before speaking.

If this thread collapses, it may be better if I finish my reading on Lacan's ideas on language for this, and create a new thread when I have less stress. I will see what can be salvaged from this thread and consider creating a new one in the future.

Reply to Jack Cummins I enjoy the exploratory aspect of your threads. And admire how you attempt to respond to each participant. If you are under personal stress, then is it wise to put further pressure on yourself? I know there is a plus side - a release of thoughts in writing and engaging with others with similar interests. However, when it comes to the big topics like 'Idealism', then it can become increasingly messy.
I have sympathy with seeing how things go in a discussion and was inspired to read more. Still pondering 'metaphysical imagination'. Thanks for all your effort but remember to breathe and chill :cool:

Quoting 180 Proof

The thread was intended to explore the debate over idealism, but with reference to semantics.
— Jack Cummins
What "debate"? You haven't even stated the proposition in contention we're supposed to either be for (thesis) or against (antithesis). Please clarify ...

I am totally bemused by the turn of events. However, I don't think Jack's intention was to start a 'for and against' debate. His style is exploratory. A follow-up to certain books he is reading.

Quoting Jack Cummins

The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy':

'The word was first used by Liebniz, for Plato's ontology, to contrast with Epicurus's materialism.'

Lame definition. Btw, I'm Epicurean ... about (instantiated) "ideas". See here Reply to 180 Proof.

from a 2022 thread Speculations in Idealism ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/715277

Reply to Amity Thanks. :cool:

Reply to 180 Proof Oh, we have crossed posts... it's all good :smile:

Quoting Jack Cummins

The term 'surreal' in my updated title is a way of seeing ideas and symbols as being a potential shift from metaphysics as absolutes, to the scope of a tentative notion of the metaphysical imagination.

View Answer

Quoting Jack Cummins

Accepted Answer

What?!
Why? Eh? :chin:

Does this mean the question: How 'Surreal' are Ideas?' has been answered to your satisfaction?
Or indicates your wish to end the thread, or your participation in it?

Reply to Amity
The 'Accepted Answer' was not of my own doing. It is an automated part of the digital software of the forum. I am not sure how it works and why it was generated on my post. Perhaps, some artificial technology decided my answer was correct, when I was only stating uncertainty of my questions and my own weaknesses.

It is even possible that artificial intelligence will be the new realm of 'spirits' taking over the role once projected onto and enacted by the 'gods.

Reply to Jack Cummins Hmm. I thought perhaps you had been meddling with the OP, pressed a button to change the thread's category to 'Question' or something like that. I wonder if there is someone about who can explain how 'accepted answer' works? God, are you there? :pray:

Quoting Amity

I wonder if there is someone about who can explain how 'accepted answer' works? God, are you there?

I don't want to derail this very interesting OP but after reading your question, I believe I can help you, Amity.

My first OP in this forum was a "question" because I didn't know how categories worked then! :smile:
As much as I recall, once the question is posted, it is needed to select an answer from the users to keep the thread going on. A message appeared in the bottom saying (my memory is not very precise in this case, and maybe I am wrong): 'Please select an answer or change the topic to another category.' 

I can't remember if I was the one who did it, or as Jack points out, it is the software that does the selection, actually.

However, I do not believe that 'accepted answer' follows a pattern of quality.

Reply to javi2541997
I have had the 'Accepted Answer' come up in several threads at some points. I have wondered if I had jolted my phone while balancing it in my hand. If anything, the mystery may show the arbitrary nature of automated information in sifting ideas discerningly. It may point to the danger of relying too much on technology as a means of 'truth'.

Quoting javi2541997

I wonder if there is someone about who can explain how 'accepted answer' works? God, are you there?
— Amity

I don't want to derail this very interesting OP but after reading your question, I believe I can help you, Amity.

Heaven be praised :smile:

Quoting javi2541997

However, I do not believe that 'accepted answer' follows a pattern of quality.

I know. I mean who does this AI guy think [s]he is[/s] they are :roll:
Seeing as how you're here, javi, good to see ya' - I wonder if you have any thoughts on 'metaphysical imagination'. What it means to you? Or anything else you'd care to add or comment on...the surreal wonder of language/s? Where your creative ideas stem from...

Quoting Amity

Seeing as how you're here, javi, good to see ya' - I wonder if you have any thoughts on 'metaphysical imagination'. What it means to you? Or anything else you'd care to add or comment on...the surreal wonder of language/s? Where your creative ideas stem from...

It's good to see you too, Amity. Thanks for allowing me to share my ideas.

Hmm. It is clearly a tough philosophical topic. I guess it can be crossed with science or neurological facts. So, if you don't really mind—or Jack, since this is his thread—I would like to share my opinion, quoting and understanding Haruki Murakami.

Murakami is an excellent novelist. He came to Spain because he was awarded a prize for literature. Debating with some fans, he stated: I think there is in our consciousness a hidden room. In this room, it is where our real selves live and create art. Sometimes it is difficult to enter it; others leave it. I imagine this room as dark or poorly lit, like a train station at night or a pit.

After reading the words by Murakami, I had a deep thought about myself. It is true that there could be a hidden room for our dreams, imagination, creative process, etc. But I didn't get why Murakami stated that this door is 'hidden' (hidden from who or what?). What I learnt is that consciousness could hold a secret (rather than hidden) location where our ideas flourish. I agree with Murakami that it is difficult to join these locations. Well, what he actually said is that it is difficult to be aware when we are in our creative room, hidden from the rest.

A few months later, I came to the conclusion that there could be three rooms for surreal or real ideas, dreams, etc. It is more normal to have a single tangible room. A second room where the tangible and unreal could be blurred (our dreams), and a third door, the one Murakami mentioned as the source of our creative thoughts, apparently.

Quoting Jack Cummins

It's hard to know how ideas are constructed.

This is a major question of mine.

I am fascinated by the irony that right now, I am using ideas (such as "mind-dependent," "objective," "idealism", "dualism"...) to seek out what an idea is.

What materials am I manipulating right now as I ask this question? I have no idea, yet I have the idea that I have no idea.

Possible explanations have ranged from eternal platonic forms, to illusory emergent functions of language. No explanations are the least bit satisfactory.

When discussing ideas, I don't see how to avoid an immaterial type substance (forget dualism for a minute - I just needed another word for material so I didn't have to say "an immaterial type of material" but that is what I meant). An idea, whatever it is, wherever it sits in the universe, cannot, by definition, have a body (at least not a material one). If I teach you what my idea of a triangle is, and you take away the idea of a triangle and teach it to some other mind, the idea may never have resided apart from a mind (unlike a platonic form), but it can't be said that my triangle is any different than yours. Two ideas if they are two ideas of a triangle, are really one and the same idea - they must be identical (or you would not have the idea). This is physically impossible.

But at the same time, when discussing anything, I don't see how to avoid a material type substance. What does "exist" mean anymore if we say an idea exists without a body?

Lodging all of this discussion into brain functions, language functions, epiphenomena, compatibilist discussions does me absolutely no good, because they eliminate the immateriality aspects - it just never accounts for the objectivity of the fact that everywhere, every time, regardless of anything, if there is a triangle, there are three sides, identical always. A materialist explanation never accounts for the idea itself and we are left where we start - what just happened when I used an idea to make something happen? We have to leave the idea intact to finish any satisfactory explanation, because the explanation itself is an idea. Otherwise, we have this idea that ideas don't exist, and the irony smacks us in the metaphorical (not material) face.

Surreal is a good word for the title.

Quoting javi2541997

So, if you don't really mind—or Jack, since this is his thread—I would like to share my opinion, quoting and understanding Haruki Murakami.

I understand Jack to encourage all and any participants with a relevant view. He talked earlier of a 'collaboration'. I like that spirit of discussion where we can learn, even be inspired...

Quoting javi2541997

Murakami is an excellent novelist. He came to Spain because he was awarded a prize for literature. Debating with some fans, he stated: I think there is in our consciousness a hidden room. In this room, it is where our real selves live and create art. Sometimes it is difficult to enter it; others leave it. I imagine this room as dark or poorly lit, like a train station at night or a pit.

Thanks for sharing this. Were you there? I've read or listened to Murakami and yes, he has interesting things to say about himself and his writing. His creative use of metaphors. A metaphysical imagination, perhaps? Surreal ideas.

Quoting javi2541997

What I learnt is that consciousness could hold a secret (rather than hidden) location where our ideas flourish. I agree with Murakami that it is difficult to join these locations. Well, what he actually said is that it is difficult to be aware when we are in our creative room, hidden from the rest.

In what sense did he mean 'aware' - fully conscious of the world around? The creative space being the layer below. The 'hidden' subconscious or unconscious. So, when in writing mode, you are in a flow of ideas and images desiring no interruptions from daily life. "Time for tea, dear!"

Quoting javi2541997

I came to the conclusion that there could be three rooms for surreal or real ideas, dreams, etc. It is more normal to have a single tangible room. A second room where the tangible and unreal could be blurred (our dreams), and a third door, the one Murakami mentioned as the source of our creative thoughts, apparently.

Interesting conclusion and fascinating how the magic number 3 always seems to arise when talking about consciousness. Even in some TPF short stories about dreams/houses, there are 3 levels connected by stairs; the dark basement, the full main living area, the attic where things are stored or people hide.

The 3 lines in meditative haiku verse. Metaphysical imagination? Realism. Idealism. Does it matter what label is used if there is a sensitive and sensible awareness that flows and captures a moment of time...I remember your simple poem which captivated readers in the TPF competition :sparkle:

Freud's 3 levels: the structure of mental life - id, ego, superego. The 3 levels of consciousness, the iceberg analogy - the conscious (visible tip of the iceberg), the preconscious (just below the surface), and the unconscious (vast submerged portion).
https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html

***

Only a few of the many links:
https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/2393/ - with free download.

Helewise, Freya (2012) Boundless Venus: the Crossover of the Conscious and Unconscious in the Works of Haruki Murakami. Masters thesis, University of Gloucestershire.
Perhaps too academic - heavy reading at 122 pages! But the pdf allows you to skip to interesting parts.

***

https://owlcation.com/humanities/1Q84-Is-About-Portals-of-Consciousness

The novel, which is technically three books in one, holds together by what I call "portals of consciousness." Murakami is known for his works that play off ideas of intuition and psychic prowess. His readers are left wondering if the events in his stories are to be taken at face value as reality or if the events are about the characters losing their minds. The author pushes readers to think beyond what they expect of consciousness, that perhaps humans can do incredible things with their minds if they let themselves tap into the subdued parts of themselves.

Murakami’s books aren’t for everyone. They can be violent and sexually graphic. For other readers, Murakami might be too strange. 1Q84, like many of his works, can be better understood if you know a thing or two about psychologist Carl Jung. In fact, Murakami pens a unique chapter in the novel that briefly mentions Jung. It’s one of the last chapters called “Cold or Not, God Is Present.” (This is a play on the phrase “called or not, God is present.

***
Last but not least, an article written by Murakami himself. Quotes:
Quoting Guardian - Murakami on the power of writing simply

I want to open a window in their souls’: Haruki Murakami on the power of writing simply.
The master storyteller on finding a voice, creative originality and why he has never suffered from writer’s block.

Writing in a foreign language taught me to express thoughts and feelings with a limited set of words.

It is my belief that a rich, spontaneous joy lies at the root of all creative expression

I came across this line recently in the New York Times, written about the American debut of the Beatles: “They produced a sound that was fresh, energetic and unmistakably their own.” These words may provide the best definition of originality available. “Fresh, energetic, and unmistakably your own.”

Originality is hard to define in words, but it is possible to describe and reproduce the emotional state it evokes. I try to attain that emotional state each time I sit down to write my novels. That’s because it feels so wonderfully invigorating. It’s as if a new and different day is being born from the day that is today.

Quoting Amity

In what sense did he mean 'aware' - fully conscious of the world around?

Good question.

According to Murakami, the third room is something secret. He admitted that the subconscious can often be unknown. He likes to explore this specific room in most of his novels, but I never thought he actually believed in the existence of this room. He couldn't explain with proper words what it feels like to be in the third room, but he claims that it exists, and he wonders if everything in the room exists as well, or if it is a hallucination. It was interesting to me to perceive that while he wished to explore this room, he also hesitated.
Adding to Murakami's point, I believe dreams and nightmares are real, although this only occurs when I am asleep. I assure you that while dreaming, I experienced full consciousness and encountered individuals and locations that are easy to know and remember. But every time I woke up, I realised it was all a dream, no matter how genuine it appeared. Perhaps Murakami refers to the third room as a mix of both. A more continuous experience where dreams and awakened moments are more plausible.

How can we know we are there? –In the room where dreams and life are merged– and could it be possible to know when we enter and when we leave the room?

Quoting javi2541997

But every time I woke up, I realised it was all a dream, no matter how genuine it appeared. Perhaps Murakami refers to the third room as a mix of both. A more continuous experience where dreams and awakened moments are more plausible.

Do you never have lucid dreams where you know you are dreaming and can sometimes control the way it progresses?
So, it can be seen as a mix of the real, the surreal - the conscious and the subconscious. A hybrid state of consciousness.

Quoting javi2541997

How can we know we are there? –In the room where dreams and life are merged– and could it be possible to know when we enter and when we leave the room?

I am not sure that there is a definite point of entry or exit between the 2 types of awareness from the subjective perspective. It is more of a slide or flight, to and fro, I think. I don't know.
However, objectively, a small study has apparently shown that: 'the unusual combination of hallucinatory dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness and agentive control experienced in lucid dreams is paralleled by significant changes in electrophysiology.' From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2737577/

***

Quoting javi2541997

He admitted that the subconscious can often be unknown. He likes to explore this specific room in most of his novels, but I never thought he actually believed in the existence of this room. He couldn't explain with proper words what it feels like to be in the third room, but he claims that it exists, and he wonders if everything in the room exists as well, or if it is a hallucination. It was interesting to me to perceive that while he wished to explore this room, he also hesitated.

I think that if the 3rd room is his subconscious, then there is every reason to be wary of what ideas or images might surface. Perhaps that is why some people fear letting go, releasing their rational mind to explore the creative. Memories, emotive issues can be easily triggered by a single word.

Murakami no doubt has his demons transferred to fictional characters and settings. Seems open to explore them but perhaps there are even deeper shades or layers of darkness, beyond the walls, wells and tunnels he keeps secret.

Perhaps you - or others - have a similar experience of alternating mental states when immersed in the creative writing process? Surreal ideas?

Quoting Amity

Perhaps you - or others - have a similar experience of alternating mental states when immersed in the creative writing process?

OK. Perhaps I've gone too far and will stop now. Treading on personal lines a step too far. I know some are uncomfortable or not interested in sharing such experiences. This ain't the place for that.

One last thing, when I wrote 'alternating mental states', I was also thinking of 'altered states of consciousness'. What some creative artists (or anyone really!) practise to blunt the sharp edges or sharpen insight into life, physical or mental. To find their muse and ideas. Or simply to chill.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/booze-as-muse-writers-and-alcohol-from-ernest-hemingway-to-patricia-highsmith-1.2369720

Murakami thinks that 'rich, spontaneous joy' is the source of creative expression. He tries to attain a certain emotional state to invigorate and begin a new and different day. I wonder if he achieves this by his daily practice of running or swimming. Exercise producing an endorphin high? The energetic interaction of body and mind helping to generate ideas...time for a walk or wander...

Quoting javi2541997

How can we know we are there? –In the room where dreams and life are merged– and could it be possible to know when we enter and when we leave the room?

It's perhaps the effects of being/becoming increasingly aware that mean more...?

Bye for now - and thanks for the thoughts :sparkle:

Reply to Jack Cummins
The idea of surrealism comes from the belief that we deal with reality indirectly by pulling it apart into pieces. Maybe we can experience it more directly when the intellect is offline, as in dreams, or in poetry.

Ideas are pieces of something bigger, which is implied in the way that ideas are inextricably bound to materiality, as the idea of a horse is bound to particular manifestations. Look deep into matter, all the way down, and ideas are always there.

Reply to Fire Ologist
Sorry for the late reply, as I took a couple of days break from the site. I found your reply to be one which I could relate to. That is because the distinction between how ideas separate from the perspective of the physical is complex. That is because i ideas ars representations, based on experiences but not simply that. They are beyond our subjective interpretations. For example, people may have different ideas about morality, but the idea of morality exists beyond that.

Postmodernism deconstructed ideas to some extent, but not completely. The nature of constructed 'truth' may be a bit fuzzy, blurring facts and inner interpretation, making it surreal in many respects.

Reply to frank
The surrealistic paintings, such as those of Dali, show the way in which the imagination interprets facts. It is a source for ideas and creativity. The idea of Plato's forms may be a bit too literalistic metaphysically. Nevertheless, there does appear to be an archetypal or mythic dimension. The surrealistic interpretation or deconstruction allows for a certain amount of playfulness in the way one relates to ideas.

Reply to Jack Cummins :up:

Reply to Jack Cummins Very well said. A refreshed you, back on form :sparkle:

Reply to Jack Cummins Reply to frank

As a passing thought, I like the reference to surrealism. The facticity of things at one level can obscure the fact of them at another. A clock or watch finds itself a symbol for the abstract concept of time, but materially it's a construction dependent on material and spatial contingencies and only arbitrarily related to its symbol. The fact of time is then both represented and obscured by its concrete symbolization. Art can bring these things together by deconstructing the concrete facticity in a way that frees the symbolic within. E.g. Dali's surrealist representations of clocks and watches as flowing and ubiquitous allow the symbolic to "leak through" the concrete, unifying both into a greater whole that's psychologically enriching.

Quoting frank

The idea of surrealism comes from the belief that we deal with reality indirectly by pulling it apart into pieces. Maybe we can experience it more directly when the intellect is offline, as in dreams, or in poetry.

Interesting to consider. And I wondered whether the 'intellect' was 'off-line' in surrealist writing.

From wiki, it seems there were 2 separate Surrealist manifestos. Imagine they literally fought over the rights to the term. I found this useful but that's only after a quick, superficial look:

Quoting Wiki - Surrealism

Breton's 1924 Surrealist Manifesto defines the purposes of Surrealism. He included citations of the influences on Surrealism, examples of Surrealist works, and discussion of Surrealist automatism. He provided the following definitions:

Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.
[...]
Because Surrealist writers seldom, if ever, appear to organize their thoughts and the images they present, some people find much of their work difficult to parse. This notion however is a superficial comprehension, prompted no doubt by Breton's initial emphasis on automatic writing as the main route toward a higher reality. But—as in Breton's case—much of what is presented as purely automatic is actually edited and very "thought out". Breton himself later admitted that automatic writing's centrality had been overstated, and other elements were introduced, especially as the growing involvement of visual artists in the movement forced the issue, since automatic painting required a rather more strenuous set of approaches. Thus, such elements as collage were introduced, arising partly from an ideal of startling juxtapositions as revealed in Pierre Reverdy's poetry.

[my emphasis]

So, it seems that the intellect is engaged and control is exerted in expressing/understanding any surreal experience. It is an interpretation of the images or ideas dis/uncovered in dreams or expressed in poetry. The expression of such 'indirect' realities might be 'surreal' in the sense of a bizarre combination of the 'real', concrete and the 'unreal' - unexpected, hallucinatory quality of dreams. How is this 'the real functioning of thought' (as underlined above) ?

Quoting Baden

The facticity of things at one level can obscure the fact of them at another. [...]

Art can bring these things together by deconstructing the concrete facticity in a way that frees the symbolic within. E.g. Dali's surrealist representations of clocks and watches as flowing and ubiquitous allow the symbolic to "leak through" the concrete, unifying both into a greater whole that's psychologically enriching.

[my bolds]

A lovely description. It sounds good. Who wouldn't want to be enriched, psychologically or otherwise?

I enjoyed the 'leaking through' - but, then, I saw it as 'dissolving' rather than combining...water seeping through concrete. Making it weak. How bizarre!
And then I wondered about the 'fact' of symbols. As well as being representations of ideas, can't they also be a 'fiction' in that they are dynamic and depending on cultural elements and imagination?

Not sure what you mean by 'facticity'...
Consider me confused :chin:

Reply to Amity

Good question... The facticity of something would be its features (set of facts) in context.

"Facticity' refers to the inherent features of entities in the world that are shared with others, such as objects, concepts, and experiences, shaping an individual's understanding and interactions within a public, shared world."

So, the facticity of a watch, from this perspective, is a combination of its material reality and what it represents socially and symbolically. One fact about it is it's a symbol for time. But the set of physical facts about it, that aspect of its "facticity" is not directly related to the concept of time. So in a way its facticity is less unified from a regular perspective than an artistic one that uses time metaphors to warp its physical characteristics.

Edit: So the surreal can be the more (psychologically) real and the "real" real relatively deficient.

Quoting Amity

As well as being representations of ideas, can't they also be a 'fiction' in that they are dynamic and depending on cultural elements and imagination?

Absolutely. :up:

Reply to Baden
As a result of this thread I have been reading about the surrealist movement as it encompasses a whole approach to the arts. It also has an important contribution to the philosophy of ideas, such as in the thinking of Andre Breton.

Part of the approach draws upon Freud's understanding of the unconscious and one aspect of this is the idea of automatic drawing and writing. This does involve the generation of ideas and symbols. Of course, this does relate to the whole tradition of fantasy and the unconscious, including James Joyce's idea of the 'stream of consciousness' and the writings of WB Yeats, including his ' A Vision'.

What the surrealists recognise is that the products of the imagination are not 'real' in a metaphysical sense. Many religious thinkers and writers took the ideas in a literal sense, which may have been a great error. I am not even sure to what extent William Blake thought of his angels and demons as symbolic or something more. The surrealists manage to deconstruct metaphysical literalism, recognising the human being juxtaposing images and words in creative experimentation.

Quoting Jack Cummins

Part of the approach draws upon Freud's understanding of the unconscious and one aspect of this is the idea of automatic drawing and writing. This does involve the generation of ideas and symbols. Of course, this does relate to the whole tradition of fantasy and the unconscious, including James Joyce's idea of the 'stream of consciousness' and the writings of WB Yeats, including his ' A Vision'.

There is a fun experiment which one can do as an artist. You take a blank canvas, an array of colours, and proceed to produce a painting, without any specific vision, no intent, goal, or plan. The artist can produce a very beautiful masterpiece in this way, simply forming things as one goes, in a method of pure spontaneity. Depending on how the artist's mind works, the piece produced may display a total lack of coherency, or great coherency, and this judgement might vary according to various observers. This is a significant demonstration concerning the nature of "coherency", which is the basic feature of an idea.

This produces the question of where, and what, is coherency. We tend to see coherency in a collection of symbols, but that is supposed to be a representation of the coherency within the mind. But the coherency in the mind is represented by the pattern in the collection of symbols. So we can look at one individual symbol, one particular aspect of the work, and ask whether there is coherency within the individual unit or aspect. If there is, and this coherency came from within the mind, then it would be need to be represented by distinct parts being related. But we've already found the fundamental aspect, the unit, as the symbol. And to be a unit it must have coherency. Therefore we need to conclude that there is coherency which inheres within the symbol itself. This is what we observe as natural beauty, the coherency which inheres within the medium as having a symbolic nature of its own. The paint has beauty even without the work of the artist.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
I have done some experiments with blank paper (not canvas), while on art therapy course. Some people get very abstract to the point of incoherency. I am a little bit the other way and end up with more familiar subject matter of drawings, such as rock guitarists and punk rockers. It is probably about getting into the frame of consciousness for active imagination.

What I have found to be useful for more automatic drawing by myself is music. This can allow for a degree of altered consciousness for accessing the imagination, almost as lucid dreaming. The ideal would be to incorporate dream images but it can be difficult to remember the details but I would like to experiment with this more. The process of this, like dream journaling may lead to greater coherency of one's own inner symbolic narratives.

Quoting Baden

Dali's surrealist representations of clocks and watches as flowing and ubiquitous allow the symbolic to "leak through" the concrete, unifying both into a greater whole that's psychologically enriching.

Yea, I like poetry and any kind of art that barely makes sense because of that. Life dwells in that open space between facts, if you know what I mean.

Quoting frank

Life dwells in that open space between facts

Nicely put. :smile:

Reply to Jack Cummins

That's cool. I don't know much about the theory of surrealism, but I dig some of the art. And I think I understand Dali's watches, but why the elephants have super-long legs is beyond me, frankly. :smile:

Reply to Baden
A lot of the images in surrealist art are statements about absurdity and with a certain amount of humour. Many works of surrealism, including some by Dali and Magritte have a lot of sexual content, even a celebration of polymorphic perversity.

It is partly a reflection of psychoanalysis, which includes ideas of others. Some of this looks at the dynamics of splitting into 'good' and 'bad' objects in the processes of projection. Also, Lacan looks at the symbolism of the phallus in gender and culture.

Lacan stands at the doorway between psychoanalysis and postmodernism and ideas of the deconstruction of gender and sexuality. In many ways, such an outlook is meant to be provocative and may have been followed on by artists like Gilbert and George.

Reply to Jack Cummins Reply to frank Reply to Baden
Thanks for providing even more food for thought.

Facticity and Being in the world. Consciousness. Linked to issues of 'authenticity' and 'freedom':
Quoting SEP - Authenticity

He [Sartre] notes that human beings, like other entities in the world, have certain concrete characteristics that make up what he calls their “facticity” or what they are “in themselves” (en soi). Facticity makes up the element of “givenness” we must work with: I find myself with a past, a body and a social situation that constrains me in what I can do [...] While human beings share their “facticity” with other entities in the world, they are unique among the totality of entities insofar as they are capable of distancing themselves from what is “in itself” through reflection and self-awareness.

Perhaps, this 'distancing' is what happens in surreal art. And creative artists can express how they really are? How helpful is it to let go in a stream of consciousness? Doesn't it need to be grounded? Reality to be sifted, rather than being overwhelmed by a confusion of thoughts/ideas?

From literature:
Quoting LitHub - If Consciousness isn't a stream, how do we represent it?

What is consciousness? For literary studies the most influential framework has been William James’s “stream of consciousness.” “Consciousness,” he wrote, “from our natal day, is of a teeming multiplicity of objects and relations...

First, James’s account actually argues that it is an unsuitable style for art. Insisting that the profusion of unimportant data in the stream’s “undistinguishable, swarming continuum” would overwhelm any legitimate object of interest if left unchecked, he claims what “gives [ . . . ] works of art their superiority over works of nature, is wholly due to elimination.”

Here James seems in alignment with his brother Henry’s aesthetic, insisting on literature’s need to circumscribe the endlessly interwoven elements of mind so as to avoid generating “loose, baggy monsters.” And the tool of James’s eliminative process is the “habits of attention.”

For him the stream of consciousness and attention serve as opposed poles, the former serving to expand the mental life and the latter to constrict it. As James writes, “without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.”
[...]
Hardline materialists, like Daniel Dennett, reject the idea of a stream entirely, pointing to experiments in change blindness to suggest consciousness is “gappy” and possesses only the “apparent continuity” of a stream, generated largely from post hoc rationalizations that reconcile “multiple drafts” of experience.

The basic problem is terminological. Since the mind is multilayered, and each layer functions in part by suppressing what occurs at other layers, what is contained by the term “consciousness” will often be less an empirical question than one of whether a given theorist wishes to include certain experiences within the concept.

Reply to Amity

Appreciate this. :pray: I've been planning to get back into Sartre.

Reply to Baden Well, you started it! With your fancy 'facticity' :smile:

Reply to Amity

:party:

Quoting Jack Cummins

What I have found to be useful for more automatic drawing by myself is music. This can allow for a degree of altered consciousness for accessing the imagination, almost as lucid dreaming. The ideal would be to incorporate dream images but it can be difficult to remember the details but I would like to experiment with this more. The process of this, like dream journaling may lead to greater coherency of one's own inner symbolic narratives.

I've heard musicians talk about how dreams inspire composition. But I think it's the opposite of leading to greater coherency. There is something very appealing about incoherency, and the incoherency in dreams provides fodder. Notice how you say that some artists get very abstract "to the point of incoherency". The point of incoherency is a boundary which can be pushed, and the further you push the boundary the more you rely on the underlying coherency of the medium itself (which I spoke of in the last post). So the aspects of the work, provided by the artist's creative mind, might be totally incoherent, but some form of coherency, enough to keep the work interesting, is provided simply by the medium. So for example, some very experimental rock and roll, which is totally distortion and weird effects. The artist provides little in the way of coherent music, relying instead on the sounds produced by the various special effects equipment.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

I don't agree that a pure medium can provide coherency where none comes from the artist's connection with their subject matter. Incoherency in that respect to me must always be only apparent incoherency if it's to remain art. Otherwise,there's no way to distinguish random sounds from art. And there's no boundary between just noise and music. Art to me is what results from a special connection between artist and world that the listener, reader, viewer etc can access through a given medium. But the connection is the origin of the art not the medium.

Quoting Baden

I don't agree that a pure medium can provide coherency where none comes from the artist's connection with their subject matter.

Some don't apprehend the coherency, others do. This is why ideas are fundamentally subjective, some see meaning where others do not, and this serves in the creation of ideas.

Quoting Baden

Incoherency in that respect to me must always be only apparent incoherency if it's to remain art. Otherwise, there's no way to distinguish random sounds from art.

Yes, I think that is exactly the point. The incoherency must be considered as 'it's incoherent to me, but maybe someone else can grasp the coherency'. Now, we can allow a blurring of the boundary between the aspects of coherency added (intentionally) by the artist, and those provided already by the medium. The artist may intentionally add things which may appear to some as incoherency within the medium. In Aristotelian words, accidentals are proper to the material aspect, but even the accidents have some form, so they are fundamentally intelligible. Then the basic intelligibility of the medium, which to many would appear unintelligible, can be mixed with the intelligibility of the form added by the artist. The skilled surrealist will completely hide the boundary between form provided by the intention of the artist, and form provided as inherent in the matter of the medium.

This can be called "understanding the medium" and in this way the artist knows the matter of the medium better than the scientist knows that matter, through observation and apprehension of how the accidental coherencies can mix with the intentional coherencies within a newly created object. The scientific observations are limited to judgements of consistent/not consistent with the theory. But the artist is not confined to those restrictions and can consider the raw perceptual response of human beings,

We can understood this allegorically as a sort of harmony which is not included in the applied theory of harmony. Take the example of music. The beat is given by a combination of the tempo and the time signature. This provides a formula for frequency, call it beats per minute. The musical notes also provide a formula for frequency, call it Hertz, or cycles per second. In theory, we could apply theories of harmony, and experiment to see how these frequencies sync up in harmony. But I don't think there is any such theory, only the experimentation by artists as to which beats harmonize better with which keys. Further, in a similar way the artist can cross boundaries between distinct media, to experiment with completely unknown coherencies. The wavelengths of colour for example, are actually frequencies, which may display harmonic properties with specific tones.

Those are just examples of how the artist is free to experiment with hidden coherencies undisclosed by theory. Of course the expression here is a sort of theory, so it defeats the purpose, because what I am talking about is coherencies which are truly unknown, hidden from all theory. However, it is given as an example of how it is possible that experimentation in abstract art, can expose through the observation of human response, coherencies which are completely hidden and unknown. Theory must be derived from somewhere.

Quoting Baden

Art to me is what results from a special connection between artist and world that the listener, reader, viewer etc can access through a given medium. But the connection is the origin of the art not the medium

Yes, that connection is the origin of the art, but we must consider the priority of the medium. The connection between the artist and the world is a very special type of relation in which the artist has a unique understanding of the medium, or media. The uniqueness of that understanding is displayed by the uniqueness of the art. However, I do believe we can apply some generalizations. To begin with, that unique understanding is a type of understanding of the response of the audience (listener, reader, viewer, etc.) to the medium. So the first principle is that the audience is not responding to the work of the artist, rather they are responding to the effects of the medium. The artist then designs an effective way to deliver the medium. So what you describe as "a special connection between artist and world", is better described as the artist's understanding of the connection between the audience and the world. What a good artist knows, is how to present (give) the world to the audience. That is why true art is best known as an act of unconditional love.

@Jack Cummins
Quoting 180 Proof

And, besides, what existential-pragmatic-ethical difference does it make, Jack, if metaphysically (according to some ancient tradition) "all is maya"

Reply to 180 Proof
Metaphysics make a difference for daily living and ethics. For example, the idealism of Plato can lead to moral authoritarianism. Similarly, the application of Kant's a priori allows for an underlying moral absolutism. As far as the Eastern concept of 'maya' it a softer metaphysics than in Western metaphysics. It does not lead to complete relativism or nihilism. It is far more subtle in its scope, allowing for awareness of the nature of existence being impermanent and fluid.

That is not to deny the importance of the meanings and concerns of those partaking in the dramas of life. Eastern metaphysics, including the idea of 'maya', does not mean that morality is superfluous and redundant. It may be a basis for standing back from our daily dramas rather than seeing them in an extremely fixed and rigid manner.

Much I agree with but

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

what you describe as "a special connection between artist and world", is better described as the artist's understanding of the connection between the audience and the world. What a good artist knows, is how to present (give) the world to the audience. That is why true art is best known as an act of unconditional love.

Here there's the possibility of a descent into a kind of degenerative recursiveness, the artist viewing their relationship with their subject matter through the eyes of their audience viewing the artist's relationship with their subject matter etc, a kind of hall of mirrors effect that distances the artist from the source of their art. I have had this problem with certain media, e.g. photography. In a way I know too much (in the abstract) about how a particular form of photographic art is successfully presented to an audience and that tends to cripple my photographic attempts at art. I don't tend to have such problems with writing.

In my mind, the solution is that for this type of "knowing" to work it should be purely intuitive and incidental rather than purposeful and deliberative. Not only then is the stain of self-consciousness avoided but that of manipulation. I can take a type of photo that works in the abstract and hate it because it feels overpurposed and inauthentic. I can also take a type of photo that is more original and hate it because it doesn't work in the abstract. But I think I prefer the latter sin, which reveals a deficiency rather than masks it.

Reply to Jack Cummins Plato and Kant basically say that "all is maya" too by arguing "appearances are not reals" and "phenomena and not things-in-themselves", respectively, so I think in this context the specific dichotomy you draw, Jack, between Western and Eastern metaphysics is exaggerated. Also, the doctrine of "maya" is self-refuting insofar as it is "maya" as well like (existential? ontological? moral?) nihilism.

Reply to 180 Proof
As I was writing my post, I was actually thinking how Kant did see epistemology as limited, with the transcendent being beyond it. However, it is complex because he also emphasised the contrast between the a priori and the a posteri of empirical experience. In general, idealism may be about a realm beyond the physical. It can be seen as a top downwards perspective of reality.

It is probably true that I probably exaggerate the difference between Western and Eastern metaphysics. It has probably been about ongoing questions by many thinkers. Apart from the difference between Eastern and Western thinking there is also some kind of historical shifts.

In particular, ancient writers often felt that they conversed with the gods. This would be disputed greatly by most serious thinkers in the twentieth first century. The realm of numinous experiences are viewed as mythic or art based fantasy. For example, ideas of heaven and hell, as well as the shamanic model of an upper and lower world are seen as metaphorical rather than as literal dimensions.

This is of significance because ideas of heaven and hell may be useful for metaphoric descriptions of experience in the here and now. This is different from the idea of heaven and hell to describe rewards and punishment in an afterlife.

Quoting Baden

Here there's the possibility of a descent into a kind of degenerative recursiveness, the artist viewing their relationship with their subject matter through the eyes of their audience viewing the artist's relationship with their subject matter etc, a kind of hall of mirrors effect that distances the artist from the source of their art.

I wouldn't call it a hall of mirrors, but more like a relation of reciprocation. Each back and forth comes with a change. That change ought to be increased knowledge.

Quoting Baden

In my mind, the solution is that for this type of "knowing" to work it should be purely intuitive and incidental rather than purposeful and deliberative.

In some ways I would agree with this. However, if we start with the assumption that "pure art" is solely a relationship between the artist and the medium, allowing that the only purpose which the artist proceeds with is to please oneself through experimentation with the medium, we are bound to encounter boredom. So I think that even within what might be called "pure art", there is the desire to please others. This is a base inclination which the artist may block, to avoid manipulation, but it still inheres as a source of inspiration. And, I think that this becomes a very critical and difficult balance for many artists, the balance between the desire to please oneself and the desire to please others. It has many facets. At the base level, the desire to please others may provide for manipulation, while the desire to please oneself may lead into a creative rut, but the reciprocation effect may mix this all up, with the influence of other interests, so that for example, the desire to please others may be replaced with a desire to make money, which is fundamentally a desire to please oneself, but in relation to interests other than the art. And this in turn could lead to the creative rut.

Quoting Jack Cummins

In general, idealism may be about a realm beyond the physical.

I think "in general, idealism" asserts that "the physical" is only an idea and not real (i.e. mind-independent). Maybe you mean platonism or cartesian dualism? :chin:

Reply to 180 Proof Likely, but it might also be that he's collecting epistemic idealism under hte same banner - in which case, equivocally, his statement sort of hits.

Reply to 180 Proof
There may be varying pictures of idealism and the principle of matter as an idea. Some of this may have emerged from mainstream Christianity.

However, the esoteric roots of idealism, which may have influenced Plato seem to rest on an assumption that mind may have fallen into matter. It is likely that wonder Plato comes from this tradition of ancient thinking and esotericism. His perspective of the cave of shadows as a representation of ' truth' does suggest to me the idea of a dimension 'beyond'.the physical.

The specific view of matter as an idea seems to correspond with the later perspective of Berkley, which came later in conjunction with mainstream Christianity.

Reply to Jack Cummins
The allegory of the cave concerns how we see images and then imagining a direct experience where those productions are not needed.

There was a period, spanning centuries, where the meaning of matter was discussed and seen in silhouette against this allegory. The role of the 'physical' had boyfriends before the Christian thinkers told their story.

Reply to Paine
The story of the allegory of Plato's Cave is important and I shall try to read further. There is the possibility that some of the story may have got lost or have been suppressed in the Augustian interpretation of Plato which developed in Christendom.

I am reading ' Existentialism and Mysticism' by Iris Murdoch. This includes plenty of discussion on art as 'truth' or 'lies'. Some of this comes down to metaphysics and some to metaphorical understanding. Plato's ideas are relevant, or not, in twentieth first century understanding?

Plato's idea of 'forms' may he important as metaphysical abstracts. Nevertheless, it may be important to go beyond abstraction. Murdoch argues how in the thinking of Plato, life after death may continue beyond the body. Is this a problem with Platonism and its embodiment in life? It may be point to questionable areas about ideas as 'forms', beyond the physical. So, I am left wondering about the spectrum of eternal ideas and how these come into play in the human imagination. Any further thoughts?

Quoting Jack Cummins

I am left wondering about the spectrum of eternal ideas and how these come into play in the human imagination

All ideas are expressed with words, and words come into play by the principle of compositionality. Meaningful expressions are built up from other meaningful expressions.

SEP:We can understand a large—perhaps infinitely large—collection of complex expressions the first time we encounter them, and if we understand some complex expressions we tend to understand others that can be obtained by recombining their constituents.

That should answer your question, unless you're an opponent of compositionality, e.g. assume that the meaning of an idea depends on the intentions of the speaker, or on the context, regardless of the meanings of the words that express the idea.

Reply to jkop
The idea of 'compositionality' does seem useful because human beings to grasp and capture ideas by a sense of meaning. It is likely that this involves intuition as a starting point for connection with ideas. It comes into play in learning of ideas in childhood. Ideas may come into play simply initially and become more complex when the intricacies of language are understood.

The only challenge to the idea which I see is Plato's notion of amanesia(recollection), which is about rediscovery of eternal ideas. However, Plato's understanding only makes sense in the context of the assumption of an 'eternal soul', which extends before and after this life. This would amount to a picture of disembodied spirits as a basis of idealism and innate aspects of connection with concepts of ideas.

Quoting Jack Cummins

It may point to questionable areas about ideas as 'forms', beyond the physical.

What is meant by the "physical" is something I challenge as a self-evident idea. That is why I quoted Plotinus earlier in your OP. Plotinus speaks as a matter-of-fact what Plato always referred to through myths, legends, and possible stories. In Timaeus and Phaedo, for example, he repeats that he does not know what happens beyond life's end. The metaphor that life is a kind of prison is a feature of Plotinus' cosmos where Plato points to a tragic failure applicable to unknown causes. The gap between life and death is wider for Plato than for Plotinus.

Is there something in the Murdoch text that speaks to that difference?

Reply to Paine
Iris Murdock looks at Plato mainly in regard to art, and how he sees art as often being about 'lies', as opposed to the difference between 'appearance and reality'. Murdock shows how Plato also sees art as being focused on pleasures as opposed to enlightenment.

As far as I can see the perspective of Plato and Neoplatonism are based on a belief in the 'reality' of the 'soul'. Plato's picture of the unconscious is based on the idea of 'the World Soul'. Between Plato and Plotinus there is an underlying perspective of the 'Divine' as a source which individuals connect with via the soul. It is what Jung refers to as a the relationship between 'God and the Unconscious'. It is about an invisible source behind the visible as manifest in mind/body human experiences.

Quoting Jack Cummins

Murdo[ch] shows how Plato also sees art as being focused on pleasures as opposed to enlightenment.

If you haven't already, read Iris Murdoch's short book The Sovereignty of Good wherein she discusses 'beauty (art) as a way of seeing – attention to – reality' and therefore (an unorthodox) Platonic approach to moral judgment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sovereignty_of_Good

previously discussed in 2022
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/705105

Also Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals collection further elaborates on her reading of Plato and Platonism.

Reply to Jack Cummins
If we are going to include Jung into the conversation, the differences between philosophical attempts to talk about 'being' and the terrain of 'psychology' needs to be considered.

I will try to read more of Murdoch. So far. she seems to be engaged with very 20nth century problems. As a student of classical Greek literature, this is no advance in understanding the way views of the soul changed over time.

Reply to Paine
I am glad to be engaged with someone who has studied Greek literature. My own reading of Plato and other ancient Greek thinkers is not as informed as I would like it to be. I am finding Iris Murdoch's discussion of Plato's writings as,particularly useful regarding Plato's ideas on literature and philosophy. I think that I probably need to read more of Plato's writings other than 'The Republic'. I have read some writing by Homer and this is probably important alongside Plato for understanding the ancient Greek worldview..

With regard to Jung, I have read his writings since I was at school. I am aware that he does not sit within philosophy clearly. There again, he does not fit in with twentieth first century psychology at all. One of the reasons why I see his writing as important though is because he has read so many philosophical authors and this reading is integrated in his writing and, for this reason, he offers a significant contribution to philosophy in his many volumes of writings..

There is a strong connection between Plato and Jung because Jung develops his idea of archetypes from Plato. However, a big difference is regarding ideas of perfection. Plato sees this as an ideal to attain whereas Jung is influenced by Gnosticism, which sees good and evil in a very different way. In particular, Jung, writing in the twentieth century, offers a critique of the development of ideas of good and evil in Christendom and ways which have lead to problems for humanity, especially human destructiveness.

Reply to Jack Cummins
I came off more dismissive than I intended. I am still looking for a free version of Murdoch's essays on these topics so I shouldn't criticize what I have not read yet.

There are different ways to frame the differences between psychology and the inquiries underway in Plato. It is difficult to draw general boundaries where one ends and the other begins. For example, the context of reported experience is different for Jung and William James, yet both developed psychological models of what is expressed as 'transcendental' conditions in past literature. Their means of translation are different from approaching the intent of a work through its own terms and the place that had in the conversation of contemporaries. But saying that alone won't help differentiate Jung from James in a meaningful way.

To my thinking, Jung's work as a clinical therapist makes him different from other thinkers who built psychological perspectives into their writing. The language of drives, instincts, and reactions to unconscious processes, that was introduced by On the Psyche, are not cancelled by The Red Book. A big topic I will not boldly barge into.

Regarding the role of 'perfectibility' in Plato, the role of the 'unchanging forms' is often set over against our limited understanding of them. Words without number have been poured into the bowl of the dead Plato over this question. Many beakers full have been poured right here at TPF Whatever one might think about that conversation, there are plenty of examples in Plato pronouncing the less bad being acceptable until the better is known better. The question of whether the philosopher's return to the cave is a futile endeavor or not still throws a shadow over the scene.

I have recently read Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days again after four decades. I have since smacked my forehead with the realization of how deeply this material is interwoven into the world of Plato, before and after his time. As with Homer, Plato happily quotes Hesiod in some places and rejects him in others. In some places, Hesiod is present by proxy without citation and explained away rather than embraced or spurned. Hesiod is like a set erected behind the background of many acts in a play.

This causes me to wonder if the immortals of Hesiod and Homer are not better examples of the way Jung presents archetypes than Plato's 'virtues in themselves." The immortals personify psychological dynamics present in the mortals. The narrative of Hesiod shows how immortals were closer to mortals in the past and have grown increasingly further apart. There is a hope expressed in a better future but no guarantee of one.

I want to address the engagement of 'Neoplatonists' with 'Gnostics' but am deep into a listening (reading) mode right now that is causing me to question many of my previous opinions. I will try to say more if I learn more.

Quoting Paine

I will try to read more of Murdoch. So far. she seems to be engaged with very 20nth century problems. As a student of classical Greek literature, this is no advance in understanding the way views of the soul changed over time.

Murdoch wrote that in a sense it is true that philosophy makes no progress. From:

Iris Murdoch, Philosopher: A Collection of Essays - Reviewed.

Quoting Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

This collection is a milestone in the history of Murdoch scholarship. It seeks to establish "that Murdoch is of importance and interest to the same people as read the moral philosophy of Kant and Plato or Philippa Foot and John McDowell". [...]

I am delighted by the increasingly sophisticated secondary literature on Murdoch's philosophy represented by Broackes' collection, but while reading it I found myself nostalgic for the intimacy of Murdoch's unmediated address.

I am referring here to the experience of reading, for the first time and without preconception, the opening sentences of The Sovereignty of the Good:

It is sometimes said, either irritably or with a certain satisfaction, that philosophy makes no progress. It is certainly true, and I think this is an abiding and not regrettable characteristic of the discipline, that philosophy has in a sense to keep trying to return to the beginning: a thing which is not all that easy to do.

Quoting 180 Proof

If you haven't already, read Iris Murdoch's short book The Sovereignty of Good wherein she discusses 'beauty (art) as a way of seeing – attention to – reality' and therefore (an unorthodox) Platonic approach to moral judgment.

I think that would be worthwhile :up:

Quoting Paine

I am still looking for a free version of Murdoch's essays on these topics so I shouldn't criticize what I have not read yet.

Yes, good idea. Free reading material is difficult to find. However...

You might find this helpful. If you can't bear the accent, a transcript is available:
@180 Proof - haven't watched it all, so not sure how correct it is?
The Sovereignty of Good (Iris Murdoch): Overview

Reply to Amity Reply to Paine Reply to 180 Proof

I am reading the volume of essays by Murdoch, 'Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature', which I was fortunate to find in my local library. There is a lot to read and ponder in it, as it includes a lot of discussion, including a whole section on reading Plato.

One of the important aspects which I am finding in her work is her comparison between the arts and philosophy. This is pertinent in understanding Murdoch because she wrote novels and philosophy, so had experience in both fields. In particular, she sees both literature and philosophy as being involved in the pursuit of 'truth'. She sees the distinct role of philosophy in the following way:
'Philosophy is not exactly entertaining but it can be comforting, since it too is an eliciting of form from muddle. Philosophers often construct huge schemes involving a lot of complicated imagery. Many kinds of philosophical argument depend more on or less on explicitly upon imagery. A philosopher is likely to be suspicious of aesthetic motives in himself and critical of the instinctive side of his imagination. Whereas any artist must be at least half in love with his unconscious mind, which after all provides his motive force and does a lot of his work. Of course philosophers have unconscious minds too, and philosophy can relieve our fears; it is often revealing to ask of a philosopher, "What is he afraid of?" The philosopher must resist the comfort-seeking artist in himself. He must always be undoing his own work in the interests of truth as to go on gripping his problem. This tends to be incompatible with literary art. Philosophy is repetitive, it comes back over the same ground and is continually breaking the forms which it has made.'

I really like Murdoch's emphasis on repetition in philosophy as it captures the way in which one keeps coming back to the same problems over and over again. This is the philosophical method and is how ideas develop.

Also, her argument about philosophy being more than entertainment. If anything, it may be that philosophy needs to be a bit more entertaining than theory. After all, many of the influential philosophers and works wrote creative non fiction or wrote novels as well as philosophy. For example, 'The Republic' and 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', although not light entertainment, probably succeeded as classics because they were great pieces of literary art.

For a lighter way into Iris Murdoch's themes and ideas. Where to start...

'Murdoch wanted her fiction to teach us lessons: often the lesson being about freedom, and how doing what you want will affect those around you.'

Murdoch's The Nice and the Good
Quoting The Booker Prizes - A Guide to Iris Murdoch's Best Novels

Often there’s a balance in Murdoch’s novels between reality and unreality, where prosaic settings are coloured by heightened emotions and exaggerated elements, giving them a fantasy-like flavour. And this may be the novel of Murdoch’s which most draws on traditional fictional styles – a philosophical investigation you can curl up with – but retains all of her individuality.

I haven't read it but it sounds good!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nice_and_the_Good

Quoting Jack Cummins

I am reading the volume of essays by Murdoch, 'Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature', which I was fortunate to find in my local library. There is a lot to read and ponder in it, as it includes a lot of discussion, including a whole section on reading Plato.

One of the important aspects which I am finding in her work is her comparison between the arts and philosophy. This is pertinent in understanding Murdoch because she wrote novels and philosophy, so had experience in both fields.

Excellent. Probably deserves a thread of its own. Given my recent explorations into 'The Philosophy of Creativity', I would love a deeper focus on this. I am not likely to start a discussion anytime soon but simply gathering ideas. I think I might have to invest time in this book! :up:

Quoting Amity

I think I might have to invest time in this book! :up:

Quoting 180 Proof

Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals collection further elaborates on her reading of Plato and Platonism.

Reply to 180 Proof *groans* - thanks for heaping yet another onto my pile :roll:

The title makes it seem as dry as dust but I read a short review and it seems she uses her literary gifts to present her ideas clearly and lightly:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/iris-murdoch/metaphysics-as-a-guide-to-morals/

Reply to Amity
I wouldn't wish to start a thread on Murdoch's ideas at this stage due to repetition, but even though this thread has turned into a surreal mix of ideas, hopefully some will see the discussion here. I have been reading the essay'The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts'. I find this passage useful in thinking about truth and virtue in art, even though she does see art as having more potential for degradation. Murdoch argues,
'Good art reveals what we are usually too selfish and too timid to recognise, the minute and absolutely random detail of the world, and it reveals it together with a sense of unity and form. This form often seems to us mysterious because it resists the easy patterns of the fantasy, whereas there is nothing mysterious about the bad forms of art since they are the recognisable and familiar rat-runs of selfish day-dream. Good art shows us how difficult it to be objective by showing us how differently the world looks to an objective vision. We are presented with a truthful image of the human condition in a form which can be contemplated...'

This passage captures the way in which art is about the seeking of 'truth'. It is a form of mysticism based on observation of imminent truth as opposed to the transcendent aspects of metaphysics. Of course, it does not mean that metaphysics is outmoded but it does give a focus in 'this world' as opposed to in the abstractions of the 'hidden'. As much as I enjoy reading esoteric ideas, they may be artificial fantasies of the human imagination.

Quoting Jack Cummins

I wouldn't wish to start a thread on Murdoch's ideas at this stage due to repetition, but even though this thread has turned into a surreal mix of ideas, hopefully some will see the discussion here. I have been reading the essay'The Sovereignty of Good Over Other Concepts'.

No, I wouldn't expect you to start another thread. This one is flowing well with a kaleidoscope of multiple views, ideas and recommendations. It could well go on forever - the Eternal World of Jack and Friends. The thread I had in mind wouldn't be focused on Murdoch's ideas alone. But how they fit in with the bigger picture of...oh...well...Everything :wink:

I really don't know how you manage to read, digest and share so much, so quickly! I already feel overwhelmed but have ordered the hardback 'Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals' and 'The Nice and the Good' from Abe's 2nd hand bookstore. Only about £3 each with free shipping.

You are fortunate to have such a great library nearby. I've been reading a little about her ideas and writing online. For example https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/03/30/iris-murdoch-against-the-gods/

Includes Links to https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/10/21/iris-murdoch-unselfing/

I enjoy the aspects related to beauty, nature, attention and unselfing. 'The spirit relaxing into our essential nature, sharing existence'. (paraphrasing).
And can hardly believe she took on Plato in her own version of Dialogues! What an imagination.
The short and easy articles include works of art. Enjoy :smile: