>Merricks argues that inanimate, large-scale (macrophysical) composite objects—such as rocks, chairs, statues, and stars—do not actually exist. Instead, there are only microscopic particles that are arranged rock-wise, chair-wise, or statue-wise.
>chair-wise>rock-wise>statue-wiseGive a definition for each of these things which doesn't presuppose the concept that each of these things is arranged as. I'll wait.
>>25581518I came up with this independently after reading Kant
>>25581532"Give me a concrete definition" isn't a refutation of the assertion that our definitions are arbitrary constructs for our own benefit
>>25581550Except when you say something is arranged "X-wise" you're already presupposing the concept of X which seems like a contradiction in the nihilist position. You can't say something is arranged "table-wise" without presupposing the concept of a table lol to define something as arranged table wise. If you don't pressupose tables exist, how can you define something as being arranged table-wise? In the end you end up with a circular definition. "X-wise things are things arranged X-wise". Lol wut?
>>25581518Chair don't exist the same way atoms exist? Big composite thing has more complexity than small unitary thing? Oh gee better hurry up and write a book about it
This book also refuted the existence of chairs
>>25581577If it’s in the shape of a penis I could say it’s arranged penis-wise but it doesn’t mean it’s actually a penis
Relativism is the foundation of the world, as everything is constructed and can change at any time, for object and category are us describing how we engage the world around us. Human society is a cosmic tragedy. The world is inherently unjust and unfair, but people are fundamentally good in terms of every day decision and when concerning those they care about. Why, then, does evil persist? Because people are at the same time incredibly lazy and selfish. They are stupid, simple creatures of instinct and animality. We are perpetually at war between these sides of ourself, and it takes effort and education to act good. Goodness is an instituted pedagogical exercise. It is not malice that ruins the world, but a profound lack of effort, everyone wants to live in decadence and abundance with the lowest amount of effort to achieve it. In fact, the world would be a better place if people simply were literate and focused on knowledge rather than materialism. If humanity could posses the vocabulary to understand its condition, we would cooperatively fix it. But we don't, because reading takes effort, and we are tired. In this world, one should place the truth before everything else. Look at reality with brutal clarity. And the absolute, undeniable truth of my existence is this, there is nothing called "love" objectively, kinship or "goodness" or any of these things are purely artificial, and they can dissolve as easily as they appear. Intuition is infallible, and anything we intuit to be true is true. I do not need to do the hard work of proving my worth, nor do others need to learn to read my intentions. I simply intuit what I will, which makes it factually true. By extension, by willing good into existence, the world is cured of its injustice.
>>25581611go clean your room kid
>>25581577Chair-ness is not created by the subject; it belongs to the being of the chair itself.
Chairs are the opium of the masses. They keep the working class comfortable and seated so they don't rise up.
>>25581617Based Marx. Based chair-atheists.
>>25581656Achairists
>>25581599Yes but doesn't that imply you know what a penis is?
>>25581611I like you anon, take care
>>25581518based unproductive pedent.
>>25581518The problem I have in this is that its just a slight reframing of terms. you are still practically going to refer to these things whether you think they are aggregate aproximates or not when you talk about their subject.
>>25581577The presupposed concept of a table that you speak of is a social construct that doesn't exist in nature. Where's the confusion here?
>>25581617they don't have chairs on our order pickers at amazon though
>>25581518Western metaphysics is little more than a failure to understand relationships so profound it infects one's concept of reality.
>>25581518>macrophysicalLanguage exists. Objects exist in language. 4chan is more real than your cock.
>>25581518>mereological nihilism>still believes in “simples”rumaothis nigga has NOT studied the tao…
>>25581518Chairs are far more real than particles. But there is a difference between furniture and its materials yes.
I can’t afford groceries
>>25582250Marx and Engels are free online.
>>25582250pull yourself up by the boot straps, zoomie.
>>25581562If you can't define a thing, then you can't pinpoint it as a belief, let alone opine as to whether it is real or not.
>>25581824Does something need to exist in nature for it to be real? Define nature. Even if that were true, what in nature is real? Are stars real? Is a river real?
>>25582312Are there unnatural existing things, are there things which don't exist? Why not just say existing.
>>25582271wow anon, then he would be hungry and pretentious.
>>25582338>Are there unnatural existing things, Evidently so. Chairs, beds, tables, cars. We interact with them every single day. We have distinct concepts about them in our minds. We rarely, if ever, confuse them. We almost always know them when we see them. >are there things which don't exist? I don't think so but, it is possible. Some philosophers do think that there is a sense in which non-existent things like unicorns are real. There might not be any instances of them in our world, yet we do have pretty distinctive concepts about them. However, I think the real hunch here is over what we mean by "non-existence." If something does not exist, surely then it has no being. But if it has no being, it it is nothing, then how can we even think about non-existing things? How is it possible for me to think about being, like "being a unicorn", if, in fact, unicorns are entierly non-existent? "Thinking is being", says Parmenides. How could anyone think non-being? Unless, in fact, by non-being he does not mean absolute nothingness, but means something else, like difference, a lack of something, or false statements?
>>25582312What I was getting at is that there is no "table", "river", or "star" without an observer. Class, kingdom, animal, mineral, etc are things man invented in its infinite capacity for symbology and categorization.Your questions are worthwhile but not within the scope of my intent. The other anon was saying that discussion of a thing presupposed its existence as that thing; I was simply pointing out that this was NOT presupposed but learned. My mistake for my usage of the word "nature".
>>25582385>What I was getting at is that there is no "table", "river", or "star" without an observer. Class, kingdom, animal, mineral, etc are things man invented in its infinite capacity for symbology and categorization.But I'm just asking how you can actually know this? I can acknowledge with you that there are man-made names about things in the world, but does that imply the things referred to by these names don't exist? I mean maybe all it tells us is there are different ways for things to exist, or mayhe different ontological gradations in being. It doesn't mean things like chairs don't exist just because humans invented them, or even things like stars and rivers because man has named them due to exhibiting common and observable properties. Evidently these things do exist, we interact with them, we have distinct concepts about them, and we just happen to have names for them. Maybe not every civilization has names for them, maybe other civilizations have names for plenty of other things that we don't have names for.
>>25582356>Evidently so.Is man natural?
>>25582419I think so.
>>25581518And now how do I reconcile this with my experience very much of rocks and chairs and statues and stars?
>>25582427Is man a creation of man? Are man's creation then natural? Therefore can there be an unnatural thing?
>>25582431>my experienceRead Hegel, then Kierkegaard, then Heidegger.
>>25582432We need to define nature first. What does it mean for something to be natural as opposed to unnatural? Might performing division (diairesis) help? Let us try to make this our starting point, if indeed it is the correct starting point (alas, who can give us first principles if it is not?) So then, let us ask: Is nature a composite thing or an aggregate thing? Let this be our first division (diairesis).
>>25582411>But I'm just asking how you can actually know this?Unless you can demonstrate that a concept exists outside the scope of thought, it seems self-evident ('m sure some very good philosphers have made decent cases for this). Unless I'm mistaken, Merrick isn't saying that these things "don't exist" in the sense that nothing is there at all. He's demonstrating that our observations are from an arbitrary, fixed point.>common and observable propertiesCommon to our culture in this present moment and observable to the senses of our species. Ask something as big as an atom or something that can see every wavelength of light what they observe when placed next to a chair.
>>25582462>Unless you can demonstrate that a concept exists outside the scope of thought, it seems self-evident I honestly don't think it's self-evident whatsoever. What about something being arbitrary tells us it's non-existent or non-real? If universalism about parts is the correct ontology, then arbitrariness isn't a good standard to determine how real or unreal something is. Naively, chairs and the like do exist because we see them and interact with them and make them every single day. Maybe this is shifting the burden of proof on my part, but I just don't see how denying chairs or ordinary objects is actually all that parsimonious. It might be too parsimonious! And I do feel the burden is on you to show that these things don't exist. Until then, I see no reason to doubt my ordinary experience of them. Until you can offer an account which makes positing their existence redundant I just don't see the point. Saying something is arranged X-wise doesn't really appear to me like a good alternative explanation than simply there are X things. Either you have to define X-wise arranged things in terms of X, which doesn't add anything new, or you define X-wise in terms of itself, which is just circular. >Common to our culture in this present moment and observable to the senses of our species. I don't buy arguments from culture because they're basically just arguments from relativity and I just don't buy arguments from relativity for reasons I won't list here since it might derail the discussion a bit.
>>25582435Thank your for your reading suggestions. Unfortunately I have read much of the latter of your two authors. Care to elaborate on just what you would like for me to have learnt? Are you trying to get me to map the distinction between my experience of ordinary objects and what 'really' exists microscopically, independently of my experience, on Heidegger's distinction between our use-based "ready to hand" experience of the affordances of everyday things and our reflective "present at hand" experience of objects as the bearers of properties? I'm not sure how I would even begin to do that, it is a lacuna in Heidegger as to just how objects viewed in light of their affordances relate to objects viewed in light of their properties. I am also more than sure that Heidegger would balk at the claim that all that really exists are microscopic particles. And just what, out of all of Kierkegaard, are you hinting at?
>>25582509Sheesh, sorry! I didn't want to assume you'd read them. Didn't mean to strike a nerve.
Is this what philosophers do all day. Debate if chairs are real? You gotta be fucking kidding me. What a useless subject and complete waste of fucking time... No wonder why you're all unemployed.
>>25582523The idea is that a chair is a 'generic object', or some such: that what goes for the existence of chairs goes for the existence of a whole lot else. Reframe the question. Does any object that I may experience, sans looking through microscopes and the like, really exist? And that at least has the ring of an important question, don't you think?
>>25582487Oh, I think we're discussing slightly different things. Merrick's argument cannot offer a better solution on how to define phenomena, but I think (or at least I hope) that wasn't the goal to begin with. To me it's a reminder that those observations will always be limited in scope and that's about it. I thought you were trying to say that the Platonic ideal of X is immutable and that it would exist without consciousness.
>>25582521Sorry. "Read X" posts are tiresome. But I'd still like to know what you wanted me to have learnt.
>>25582538Alright and what practical application does thishave? How does knowing if a fucking chair is real or not affect my life? Why should I give a shit about this? Nigga this is like a question you ask when you're 8 before you move on to big boy stuff. Are philosophers just mentally children? Holy fuck.
>>25582509That you're trying to smuggle noumenal claims about a platonic existence in when you've only got phenomenal experience.
>>25582543Oh ok then. Yeah I'm not a Platonist about chairs lol. That's a little bit different of a question, yes.
>>25581599you could and you'd know that because as a faggot you've seen plenty of penis and know they exist, which is the point other anon was making
>>25581518>>25581577Holism chad easily rapes the atomist
>>25582547Well, some philosophers, like some mathematicians, like some scientists, like some artists, like some sportspeople, etc, vaunt the fact that their work is done for its own sake. And some philosophers of the opposite persuasion happily work in fields like applied ethics, serving on advisory boards for charities or health services, etc. But many philosophers hold philosophy to be a natural human disposition (evidently stronger in some than others), which, if unchecked, can go awry in various ways, leading to, for example, unique debilitating anxieties (that nothing one experiences is really 'real', that one lives in a dream, etc), to which better philosophy is the only cure; or to wayward beliefs about God or morality or race or whathaveyou, again to which better philosophy is the only cure. It is also just interesting, don't you think?
>ittAnons… you know that the mereological nihilism vs realism is not the same as the nominalism vs platonism debate, right?
>>25582606Yes and nobody in this thread is really debating Platonism vs Nominalism. Maybe don't be a retard and actually read the responses in this thread. It's, for the most part, within the range of acceptable debates/discussions had within mereology.
>>25582553I didn't take myself to be hinting at any sort of Platonism. It just seemed to me inescapable that when producing an ontology so radically at odds with ordinary experience, there would also need to be some theory to make up for the discrepancy. Reconciling the manifest and scientific images, as Sellars puts it. I wanted to know how OP's philosopher did it.
Chairs are a man-made invention from materials, and the category of chair, the word chair, it is all invented by man. There is no chair outside the mind seeing a chair and inventing what a chair is. The chair's function is for the man to sit. The chair only exists as an object constructed by man. I do not believe in a chair as something independent of man's social construct.
>>25582611Nerve: struck
>>25582619Different poster.
