Locating the Knower

I accept whole heartily the realist claim that there is a real world external to us and that statements can be determined true or false based on weather they match with reality. That being said there are two broad messy points where this clean little system gets messed up. First, we often misperceive and/or misunderstand what is happening in the world, which isn't the worlds fault but our own, and this issue can be gradual overcome by employing such truth finding mechanisms as the scientific method. There is also a very real part of the world that is constructed, though none-the-less really a existing in the world.

Realists tend to neglect that the place where 'we' (the knower, doer, thinker, judger) seem to reside is in the space between the mind and the real world. The mind is a real world unto itself just as the world external to the mind is, though certainly a different sort of place. Human society is a community of subjects all experiencing their own mind and sharing that experience as mediated by the external 'real' world. The messy bit is that we don't really know how to deal with this internal world because we are only one preceiver dealing with a whole internal world.

Maybe this understanding of ontology can be used to build to a more sophisticated and solid ethics.

Hi World!

I'm Brian, we weren't told to do an introductory post, but I feel like it's customary. I'm a sophomore philosophy major from Tewksbury, which is out in EMass. Metaphysically i'm a hard determinist and epistemologicaly a fallible realist and as such the world is a dank damp dark place where its objects are constantly misapprehended and we are thrown about by the essentially arbitrary whims of a determined fate. Resultingly I seriously doubt there is any inherent moral value in things and morality thus must be derived from our collective desire to get along and accomplish things together.

I am a veggie, though I sort of wish I wasn't so I could contribute to the diversity of opinions in class. In the future when I am not dependent on Aramark for so much of my food I plan to be vegan. I am inspired quite a bit by my younger brother who went vegan at 15 and is now getting involved with animal rights activism. As a Buddhist I take the whole 'may all beings be free from fear and suffering' bit rather seriously.

I hope this class gives me a better understanding of the dimensions and depth of animal's role in human society so that in the future I can make more informed decisions about what is moral behavior when relating to non-human animals.