7. Metaphysics I: What is reality?

Question 1

Primary qualities (locke)

Answer 1

are the properties of solidarity, extension, figure, and mobility that cannot be eliminated through division. They are objects when we perceive them or not (mind-independent).

Question 2

Secondary qualities (locke)

Answer 2

the power that is in any body, by reason of its primary qualities to operate on our senses and produce in us ideas of colour, smells, tastes, sounds, textures (mind/sense dependent).

Question 3

What is an example of a secondary quality?

Answer 3

An example of a secondary quality is the power that is in the object sufficient to generate the idea of colour, smell, and texture.

Question 4

“what is reality?” is a question about…

Answer 4

“what grounds what?” not a question about what everything is made of.

Question 5

What is our foundation of reality? (possible answers)

Answer 5

Is it the mind? Consciousness? Language? Matter? Energy? Turtles all the way down? Language all the way down? What goes all the way down? Turtles on ‘we know not what’? Is there a foundational turtle? … or turtles to infinity?
Maybe ‘turtles’ all the way down!

Question 6

Implications of Locke’s View (3)

Answer 6

1. We can never perceive the material substrate of a thing.
2. Senses represent “reality”; they do not transmit reality.
3. Locke is accused of being a sceptic and for opening the door to a-theism (i.e., without theism).

Question 7

Classical (monistic) Idealism

Answer 7

George Berkely was a Christian Empiricist, and according to Berkley, there is but one underlying and existing reality – IDEA! Sensible things do not and cannot exist independently of being perceived.

Question 8

TO BE IS TO BE…

Answer 8

PERCEIVED

(and ultimately, things have existence because they are perceived by God)

Question 9

Sapir Whorf Thesis

Answer 9

language shapes reality. Language precedes thought and determines one’s conception of reality.